Hiraeth
by bravevulnerability
Summary: "It's him," her colleague answers and it's the solemn tone of his voice, the grave quality of words that she's heard in only the most dire of circumstances, that confirms it for her before he has to say another word. "It's Castle. They found him. Alive." AU. An entry for the Castle Ficathon 2017.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is loosely inspired by Stana Katic's upcoming series, 'Absentia' and is set post 6x23, 'For Better or For Worse'.**

* * *

 _hiraeth:_

 _(n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past._

* * *

The call comes in the middle of the night and she's certain it's the drop of a body, the familiar call of a murder, and Kate sighs, rubs at her eyes as she reaches for the nightstand.

"Beckett," she murmurs, shifting into a sitting position and wincing at the time of 3:47 a.m. on the alarm clock glaring back at her.

"Kate, you need to come to the hospital. New York Presbyterian," Esposito's voice fills her ear and her heart goes still, jerks her free from the lingering remnants of sleep, and she staggers out of the bed with worst case scenarios rippling through her head and making the room momentarily spin.

"What is it? What happened?" she whispers, wide awake now and rushing into her closet. "Is someone-"

"It's him," her colleague answers and it's the solemn tone of his voice, the grave quality of words that she's heard in only the most dire of circumstances, that confirms it for her before he has to say another word. "It's Castle. They found him. Alive."

* * *

There is a moment during her drive to the hospital where she is convinced she must be dreaming.

Six years. It's been six years since he vanished on their wedding day, since the trail of her investigation into his disappearance went bitterly cold, since her entire world caved in on itself.

How could he still be alive?

She's only recently begun to accept the more likely scenarios that everyone has been drilling into her brain through the last six years. She's finally begun to mourn him, to grieve, and now, there's a chance it was all in vain. That she's betrayed him by conceding to the idea of his death, by moving on to the best of her ability.

That is, if it truly is him in that hospital bed. She refuses to get her hopes up, to believe a single word of the story until she sees him, can confirm it for herself.

Kate sucks in a breath that spears through her chest as she enters the hospital, her footsteps feeling heavy and uncoordinated on her path to the front desk. Esposito intercepts her before she can reach the nurse's station and some part of her is relieved. She has no idea what to say, to ask.

 _My fiancé went missing six years ago, has been presumed dead, but I received a call that he was alive and here, so can you tell me where to find him?_

"Beckett, hey," Esposito sighs and oh god, he looks as if he's seen a ghost, and that has to mean-

"It's really him," she breathes out, meaning for it to be a question, but she can hear the revelation in her own voice. "I need to - where… where is he?"

"Second floor. Come on, I'll take you to his room," Espo murmurs, guiding her towards the nearest elevator, and she tries to listen as he begins to explain the information they have so far, describing how Castle was found off the coast of Delaware by the Coast Guard, giving what few details he has on Castle's condition, but all she can think about is the smile that has haunted her dreams, the blue eyes that have greeted her nearly every time she's closed hers, the arms that wrapped around her, and the hands that have held, warmed, and branded her skin like invisible ink.

"The boat he was found adrift in had three bullet holes-"

"He was _shot_?" she gets out and that definitely snaps her out of the haze, just in time for the elevator doors to slide open.

"Yeah, but he's stable," Esposito assures her with a hand on the small of her back, leading her out onto the floor, but she shakes him off.

She doesn't know if she can do this, if she can handle it, but before she can even attempt to decide, she catches sight of the open doorway to a room at the end of the hall, and a glimpse inside of the man laid up in the hospital bed. Her heart stops along with her legs.

"Kate," Esposito begins, his voice falling into that rare tone of concern he always reserves for her, the immediate family, but she can barely hear him past the struggle of her breathing, the thundering kickstart of her heart in her ears.

"He's alive," she whispers, her fingers automatically climbing to clutch at the chain beneath her shirt, the ring between her breasts.

He's propped up in the hospital bed, doctors and agents that she recognizes must be from the FBI all hovering around him, but she can still see his face between the ebb and flow of bodies, the crease in his brow and the frown on his lips, the desperate dart of his blue eyes searching the room.

"They'll scram once you go in," Esposito informs her from over her shoulder. "According to the doctors, he's been asking for you nonstop since the moment he woke up."

"Alexis?" she remembers on an exhale. "Martha?"

"They were both contacted, but neither have returned the calls. Probably the time," Esposito explains and she nods dumbly, tries to curl her fingers into her palms, but they won't stop trembling. "Are you… did you want me to walk you in?"

Kate forces a breath in through her nose, reinflates her staggering lungs, but she shakes her head.

"No, I just - I never thought I'd see him again," she rasps. "I'm still not convinced it's real."

She takes a tentative step forward and then another, pauses once more just outside the doorway, still hidden from view, wishing her heart would calm, but it's no use. It rabbits in her chest like a wild thing, beating for the man in the hospital room, aching like a heart on a string tied to him and tugging.

She follows the line.

The anxious chatter surrounding him falls to a low roar as she enters the room and it must earn Castle's attention, his fallen eyes slitting open, flashing the moment they land on her.

"Kate," he croaks, immediately shifting in the hospital bed and moving to rise, to get to her.

"Mr. Castle," an older man, the doctor, she presumes, protests, placing a hand on his shoulder to still him, but Castle doesn't take his eyes off of her, staring at her like a trapped animal, so needful and pleading.

"Kate," he repeats, pushing against the doctor's restraint, practically falling out of his hospital bed, and she jerks forward before he can manage to collapse to the floor. "You're here. I woke up and I - no one could tell me-" He lets out a breath, wincing at the exhale, but he won't lie back down, halfway out of his bed with his gaze clinging to her like a lost little boy. And oh, she can't handle this. She _can't_. "I'm just glad you're here."

"Ms. Beckett, we'll be right outside," the doctor notifies her as the two agents and a nurse file out in front of him, lowering his voice before he follows them out. "I realize you have… questions, but please, try not to overwhelm Mr. Castle too severely. We don't know exactly what kind of trauma he's undergone just yet."

Kate nods, but she's having trouble processing the doctor's instructions, the narrowed look he gives her as he leaves the room, and _trauma_?

"Kate," Castle calls to her once more, his voice soft and pleading. "Please, come here."

She looks back to him with her heart in her throat, roaming her eyes over his face, the burned skin, the stubble that nearly amounts to a beard, the noticeable bones of his cheeks, the beseeching expression.

God, _Castle_.

"Don't cry," he breathes, finally easing out of the hospital bed, stumbling upon his first step and gripping his side, where she can see the glimpse of a bandage from beneath the hospital gown, the scattered drops of crimson decorating the snowy white gauze.

"You're alive," she finally utters, wanting to move towards him, run away from him, _something_ , but she's frozen in place, unable to even wipe away the tears trekking down her cheeks, while he hastens his uneven shuffle towards her.

"Of course," he breathes, slowing to a stop in front of her. "I told you, never lose me."

Her chest shudders, begins to cave in on itself, on the litany of sobs threatening to breach her throat and tear past her lips, and she can't - she can't do it anymore.

Kate closes the space between them with a single step forward, mindful of his injury, but throwing her arms around his neck, feeling his lock around her body without a moment of hesitation, sealing her chest to his, her heart.

"You were gone," she sobs, can't help the ragged sound from ripping out of her mouth. "You were gone, you were dead, I _mourned_ you, I-"

"No," he chokes out, burying one of his hands in her hair, cradling the back of her skull and pressing his cheek to hers. "No, I wasn't - they all keep asking me where I went, how I disappeared," he stammers, holding her so tight that it must hurt him, the gunshot wound he somehow sustained, but she doesn't want him to let go, to lose the feeling of his body alive and against her, of his scent in her nose, and she fists her hands in the back of his hospital gown. "They all keep saying that I've been gone for _years_ , but I - Kate, I don't know what anyone's talking about. I don't remember. They keep asking me questions and I can't remember, can't remember anything after the crash on our wedding day."

She has to pull back at that, has to see his face, but all she's greeted with is panic in his eyes when she does, confusion and fear, and she lifts one of her hands to his sunburned cheek, swallows hard.

"You've been gone for six years, Castle," she reveals, watching the horror bloom through his eyes, feeling it leak through her guts. "I looked for you, never stopped looking for you, but there was nothing, hasn't been anything. Until right now."

Castle's hand curls at her back, fisting in the leather of her jacket, holding on.

"Where did you go?" she rasps, the question that has kept her up more nights than she can count, a mystery that has damn near driven her mad, but all he can do is stare back at her with so much anguish, it overwhelms her.

"I don't know, I don't - all I know is that I wouldn't leave you, that I would never choose to leave you, especially not on our wedding day," he gets out, his head beginning to shake as his eyes squeeze shut before they flare open again like storm clouds staring back at her. "All I know is that I love you, Kate."

"Rick," she whispers, even though it leaves her lips like a whimper, and he cradles her body once more, buries his face in her hair, and she wishes it were this easy, that she could forget the last six years too.


	2. Chapter 2

Rick won't let go of her hand, but she doesn't seem to mind, allowing him to keep her right hand captive in the embrace of his while the doctor examines the graze of a bullet to his side that he can't remember enduring.

After Castle finally had the chance to see her again, to hold her, the doctor returned before he could say much else to her, before he could ask all of the questions burning on his tongue, about the last six years.

God, how can he not remember _six years_? How can so much time be erased from his brain? How is he supposed to live without remembering while Kate has to continue on with the burden of knowing every second, the years of grief carved into every line of her face, haunting her dark eyes? He can see it more clearly now that he has the chance to truly look at her in the harsh lighting of his hospital room. He can see how the years have aged her, the violet circles painting the skin beneath her eyes, the loss of weight and prominence of bones.

"Your hair's darker," he mumbles, thoughtlessly, the low hum of his voice seeming to startle her for a second, and her left hand automatically rises to the waves that fall past her shoulders.

He's scared, so scared, to ask about the silver band he's caught sight of on her fourth finger. She never liked silver very much before, always preferred gold. But six years offers a lot of time for change.

"Yeah, I just - stopped keeping up with it, the highlights, everything," she explains, raking her fingers through it before dropping them back to her lap. "But at least Lily seems to like-"

Her sentence is quickly silenced by her own mouth, her eyes flashing with a flare of panic, and she spares a nervous glance at the doctor taking notes on his clipboard. But Castle squeezes her hand, tilts his head in question when she looks back to him with her bottom lip pinned between her teeth.

"Castle," she sighs softly, redirecting her gaze to their tangled hands, drawing the other up to the edge of his hospital bed to aid in cradling his palm in both of hers. "There's so much I have to tell you, so much that has happened since you - disappeared."

Her eyes are shimmering when she lifts them once more and his heart trembles in his chest, its beats spiking on the monitor.

"Ms. Beckett," the doctor warns, but Castle shakes his head.

"No, please. Kate," he breathes, practically begs, maneuvering his hand within the embrace of hers to collide with a set of her fingers, lacing his through them. "Tell me everything, everything that's changed."

"Mr. Castle, your recovery is a very fragile process that should be taken slowly. There will be plenty of time to-"

"Time?" Castle echoes incredulously, shooting a glare at the older man he hasn't even bothered to learn the name of. "Do you even realize how much time I've _lost_? And you want me to sacrifice more?"

"Sir, I know that-"

"No, I lost my memory, not my mind, and I'm completely capable of learning the truth." He unthinkingly swipes his thumb over the ring on her finger, feels her go utterly stiff in the chair beside him. "No matter how hard it is."

The buzz of a cell phone breaks through the silence before anyone can speak, and Kate reaches for the pocket of her leather jacket, moves to rise after a glimpse of the caller ID.

"Kate," he murmurs, the panic already clawing at his chest at the thought of her leaving, but she squeezes his hand, offers an apology in her gaze.

"I'm sorry, I just have to take this, but I'm not going anywhere, Castle. I'll be right outside," she assures him and he reluctantly lets go of her hand. But she pauses before she leaves the room, holds his eyes with hers for a split second, and he notices the tiniest spark of color has been resurrected in the tombs of her irises. "I promise."

* * *

Kate leans back against the wall just outside of Castle's hospital room doorway, draws the phone to her ear and closes her eyes.

"Beckett," she gets out, hearing Tom's sigh of relief on the other line.

"Hey, I got your note." She has to think to remember what he's talking about before the note she scribbled out and left on the kitchen counter flashes in her mind.

 _Had to head out. They may have found Castle. Call when you wake._

No, 'I love you' added at the end, no sign of her name, just clipped orders. Shit, she makes a horrible wife.

"Are you okay?"

Kate bites down on her bottom lip, doesn't want to shed any more tears, especially not with him.

"He's alive," she manages to say without letting the words scrape so brutally past her lips, but Tom is silent on the other line.

She waits, listens to him breathe, gather himself.

"What do you want me to do?"

Her eyes flutter shut once more with gratitude and she swallows down the emotion clogging her throat, thinks about what matters most, what's kept her going all this time.

"Will you take Lily to school for me?" she asks, wrapping an arm around her abdomen. "Promise her I'll pick her up. Castle's… I'm the only one here right now. Alexis and Martha haven't shown up yet and he's terrified."

"Yeah, of course," he answers quickly, but she knows what's coming. He's still a detective too, after all. "I know we'll likely have to talk about it later, but has he been able to tell you what happened?"

Kate sucks in a breath, shakes her head before she realizes he can't see her. "He doesn't remember anything. The last thing he knew, he was in the crash on our wedding day, and then he woke up here. Everything else is a blank."

She can hear Tom blowing out a breath on the other line, can feel the skepticism in his momentary silence, his contemplation, but his question holds no judgement when he asks, "And you believe him?"

"If you were here, if you saw him, you would too," she mumbles, peeling her eyes open to glance back over her shoulder, into the hospital room where Castle lies in wait, staring at the ceiling while his doctor speaks words that he obviously isn't listening to.

"And if I loved him?" Tom adds quietly, but Kate can only purse her lips, can't even begin to think about what this means for her marriage, her life, her daughter.

"Not now, Tom. Please," she whispers.

"You're right, I'm sorry," he sighs over the grumble of their coffee machine coming to life, the flick of a light switch. "Listen, don't worry about Lily. I'll make her breakfast, tell her you had an early case and that you'll see her later. We can talk more then."

"Thank you," she murmurs, withdrawing the phone from her ear before he can say his goodbye, tell her he loves her.

It makes her feel sick inside, like an even worse excuse for a wife than she already is, but she isn't sure she can say it back now. Not when the love of her life that was lost is suddenly back and in the next room.

"Kate?"

Beckett startles at the frantic call of her name, the flash of red hair rushing towards her, and braces herself as Alexis crashes into her, clinging to her shoulders and gasping at the sight she must catch of her father at this angle.

"Oh my god, it's really - he's actually - Daddy?"

Kate pulls back to steady Alexis with the squeeze of her hands to the other woman's biceps, ripping her attention away from her father for just a moment.

"Alexis-"

"I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner, but I had work until two and then crashed when I got home and didn't hear my phone-"

" _Alexis_ ," Kate repeats, interrupting her ramblings, and Alexis swallows hard, visibly tries to calm down and looks to Kate with a plea for answers in her eyes, for a briefing.

After working in Missing Persons for just under a year now, training for the job all throughout college, Alexis has grown stronger, harder and less vulnerable to the harsh realities of the world that stole her father, but in this moment, she's just a girl again. The twenty year old girl who lost her dad on the same day Kate lost her fiancé.

"He's okay," she begins, lowering her hands from Alexis's arms. "He was found along the coast of Delaware, floating alone and unconscious in a small boat, and sustained a bullet graze to his left side, but the doctor has already patched him up."

Alexis lets out a breath of relief, but her gaze turns scrutinizing a moment later. "What aren't you telling me?"

"He - he doesn't remember anything," Kate sighs out the admission. "Of the last six years, he doesn't remember what happened. All he can recall is the crash on the day of our wedding, everything else leading up to today is a blank."

Alexis's brow falls into a troubled furrow, her lips pursing into that puckered frown Castle used to once wear as well.

"But… how is that even possible? I would understand a few days or something, even months, but six _years_? Have you spoken to the doctor?"

"Not as much as I'd like to," Kate sighs, raking a hand through her hair and kneading at the back of her neck. "I got the call at almost four, drove here, and I've been with him ever since."

Alexis startles. "Lily-"

"Tom's taking her to school," Kate murmurs, glancing to her feet, but Alexis reaches for her hand, drags her gaze back up to the concerned blue eyes staring back at her.

"Tom's a good man," Alexis concedes, being as supportive as she's always been, but Kate shakes her head.

"I'm not - I don't know what to think yet, don't even want to try right now. All I care about is Lily and… making sure he's truly safe," she murmurs, turning back towards the doorway.

"You and I are on the same page," Alexis adds at her back and Kate offers her a smile of gratitude before they enter the room together.

In the past six years, Alexis, the girl she always assumed would be the least likely candidate, has been the true constant in her life. She never expected that his daughter would lean on her for support, that she would offer any in return, but she did and it only doubled the day Kate learned she was pregnant.

"Alexis," Castle breathes, his eyes sparkling sapphire at the sight of his daughter walking into the room, and Kate steps aside, nudges Alexis forward.

She watches with a lump in her throat as Rick is allowed to embrace his daughter for the first time in six years, hiding his tears in her hair and rocking her back and forth when neither of them let go.

"You know, it could still come back to him. His memories," the doctor, Xanders, she thinks, murmurs at her side.

"But what made them disappear in the first place?" Kate questions under her breath, allowing Xanders to lead her to the doorway, out of Castle's earshot. "How could someone forget six years of their life?"

"There are multiple possibilities, Ms. Beckett. There is the potential presence of emotional trauma, there are also drugs and drug interactions that could be at play, that can trigger memory loss, and there's even the chance he chose to forget, managed to block out whatever has happened to him," the doctor explains on a sigh.

"Happened to him? Are there any physical signs of trauma aside from the gunshot wounds? Torture?" she presses, the fear of it slow building through her chest, worsening when Xanders hesitates.

"I can't rule it out, nor can I confirm it," the man hedges, careful not to be overheard by Castle and Alexis, talking softly at his hospital bed. "The only signs I found that could be remotely close to that is a fracture in his wrist that appears recent, within the last couple of years at least, and didn't heal well, along with the appearance of healed abrasions on his legs. He also has some... severe scarring along his back, but again, it's older, I'd guess maybe a year or more, so I-"

"He didn't have scars before," she mumbles, her gaze having slipped from the doctor to linger on Castle, on his wrists and his upper body, imagining what the naked canvas of his back that her hands once mapped with precision must look like now.

Xanders releases a slow breath. "Then I'm definitely not ruling out some form of abuse, which increases the chance that the trauma he sustained could be a driving force in his memory loss."

"What do we do?" she asks as Castle's eyes lift from his daughter to seek her, worry infiltrating his gaze at whatever he finds.

"There's no way to force his memories to come back, to know if they ever will. All you can do is be there for him, attempt to acclimate him back to a normal life as effortlessly as possible, and be prepared for what he may need if those memories _do_ return."

Kate bands her arms around her waist, a bad habit she developed after she no longer had him to aid in holding her together. "There are things he doesn't know that I… that he needs to know, that I can't keep from him. Don't want to."

"Your marriage to another man?" Xanders inquires softly with a flick of his eyes to her left hand, and she nods.

"Yes, but… it's more than that," she exhales, attempting to muster a smile that must fall flat for the man in the hospital bed. "I was pregnant when he went missing. He has another daughter."


	3. Chapter 3

Alexis fills him in on the last six years of her life with a foreign tentativeness, handling him with a kind of reluctance that he doesn't recognize or understand, but he listens with the utmost attention, desperate for every detail. Though, it does break his heart a little to learn how severely his disappearance has influenced her life, her future.

He's always wanted his daughter to do what made her happy, but this searching relentlessly for people who have such a slim chance of being found, dealing with the heartbreak and grief of family and friends suffering from the loss… he understands that she was one of those people up until this very moment, but he wants more for her. More than the exhaustion he can see marring her once unscathed face, but maybe it has nothing to do with her job at all.

Maybe it's solely because of him.

Kate sits quietly through Alexis's anxious chatter, back in the chair next to his bed like a sentinel on guard. Alexis remains perched on the edge near his hip, sharing the occasional glance with his fiancée.

Former fiancée.

It surprises him, judging from their sometimes rocky history, but apparently, the last six years have brought the two women in his life closer, and he finds himself both inexplicably grateful and slightly jealous to be excluded from this bond, cheated that he missed its formation.

Alexis's phone chirps as the darkness in the sky outside of his window dissipates, gives way to the breach of sunrise.

"Oh, Gram is on her way," Alexis announces. "It may be a few hours, or even by tomorrow at the latest, since the flight from London will probably-"

"London?" Castle echoes, trying to imagine the vibrant light that is his mother in a city she once called the "most dreadfully grey place on the planet." "What is she doing there?"

Alexis hesitates, folds her hands in her lap to buy a few extra seconds and studies her fingers instead of him.

"A little over a year after you went missing, Gram insisted we get away from the city for just a little while, so we took a trip to Europe," she explains, but there's no trace of fondness evoked in his daughter's face by the memory. Quite the opposite. "I was ready to go home after a week, but Gram wasn't, couldn't, so she stayed."

"Oh," is all he can manage to say, not sure what else would suffice, what to even think. His mother had just hidden away in England, left Alexis all alone? Except- "Did you go on the trip too?" he asks Kate, hopeful that she'll say yes, that the three of them stuck together, but Kate shakes her head.

"I needed to be here," is all she offers, but Alexis is quick to jump in, fill in more blanks from his missing time that he can already imagine the answers to.

"Kate was still running your investigation. She made sure no one ever stopped looking."

The newly developed crack in his heart runs deeper, destined to break him open by the end of the day, and Castle extends his hand to the edge of the bed, relieved when Kate claims it, slipping her palm into the embrace of his without doubt or hesitation.

"Of course you didn't," he murmurs, but he already hates the images swarming his brain, the likelihood of her alone in front of a murder board, late into the night with no one to bring her coffee or make sure she slept, ate.

No one to make her laugh when she needed it most, even when she didn't want to. No one to say something reassuring.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, his throat beginning to swell and his eyes starting to sting. "I'm so sorry I left you alone. Both of you."

Kate rises from her seat and his heart exalts as she drifts in closer, the touch of her hand to his cheek like a balm to his sunburnt flesh, the final push needed for the rebellious tears to streak down his skin, drip along his jaw.

"Not your fault," she replies, stroking her thumb to the corner of his eye, wiping away the moisture that continues to fall. "It can't be your fault."

"Kate's right," Alexis chimes in with her best attempt at hope, levity. "We'll figure this out, Dad. Don't worry."

He wants to believe that, to believe that he'll remember, believe he'll get his life back, but he's afraid that it may already be too late. The band on Kate's finger is cool against his skin, the mention of someone named Lily still echoing in his mind, and he closes his eyes to this new reality.

He's afraid that he's lost more than just time.

* * *

Doctor Xanders tells them that Castle can be discharged tomorrow morning, that it's necessary he remain for at least another night, the full 24 hours, but Alexis quells her father's protests with promises of readying the loft for his return.

"Not much has changed, but your room's been empty for so long. I can spend the day airing it out, making it cozy again," she assures him with a bright smile, one she's unable to sustain throughout the morning, still too dazed by his reappearance and the uncertainty of having him back.

Kate can relate.

"You don't live there anymore, do you?" he murmurs to her when Alexis leaves to head back to the loft with a promise to return for lunch.

Kate sighs, shakes her head.

"I stayed for as long as I could, but it wasn't - it was never going to be home without you," she confesses with a shrug, frowning down at her lap. "I moved back into my old apartment."

"Is that where you live now?" he inquires, the expression of his face hesitant when her eyes lift to meet him, his breath held - if the faltering rise and fall of his chest is any indication. "With your family?"

"Rick," she whispers, but he raises a hand, lowers his gaze to the hospital bed's railing.

"Just tell me, Kate. It's only been a few hours, but I can't handle wondering about it anymore," he murmurs, taking in a deep breath. She wishes she could do the same, but her chest is too tight, her heart breaking apart, shards of it piercing her lungs, the vulnerable insides of her sternum.

She never thought this would be something she would have to break to him, never in her worst or wildest dreams did she imagine that she would be telling Castle she's married to someone else.

 _It's not your fault_ , Burke's words echo in her head, words he repeated to her in countless therapy sessions when her guilt was almost too overwhelming.

And no, it may not be her fault, no one blamed her for finally attempting to move on after so many years, but in her gut, in her heart, that connection to Castle, that undeniable bond that has always drawn her to him like a magnet, has never died. Dulled, yes, but she never truly believed that he was dead, no matter how many people told her how likely the chances.

She's always _known_ he was alive. And she should never have stopped looking, never should have doubted her gut.

"Kate?"

Beckett blinks, steals a glance at the growing concern on his face that only makes her feel worse, before she directs her gaze to the safe place of her shoes.

"For the first few years, nothing mattered except finding you. Any spare moment I had, I was searching for a lead, using any extra resources I could get my hands on, and eventually, it became my mother's case all over again, but I was in it alone," she begins on a rushed breath, blocking out the memories of the first few weeks, months, when it was truly unbearable, when she was at her worst all over again. "After the first year, everyone was convinced you were dead. The boys helped me for as long as possible, even Gates, but there was only so much they could do. But I - it wasn't until two years ago that I even began to entertain the idea they might be right."

Kate watches his adam's apple bob, but he nods his head, tries to garner an expression of acceptance to spread through his features. "I don't blame you. I really don't, Kate. Six years… it's a _long_ time and the fact that you dedicated at least four of them convinced I was still out there-"

"I never lost hope in that," she argues, shifting out of the chair, unable to remain seated for this conversation that has her heart pounding and her blood rushing through her head. "Never. I just tried to find a balance, to not drown in it. I couldn't, not when I had someone else depending on me."

"Your… husband?" he gets out, visibly bracing himself for the truth, and Kate huffs.

"No, but I - Castle, I didn't have any intentions of - of _being_ with anyone else. The idea of it made me nauseous-"

"But?"

He's trying to manage a smile for her when she glances back to him, trying to be supportive, teasing even, to not look as hurt as he feels. And it makes her stomach churn.

But his eyes give him away, the mournful shade of blue already clouding his irises and casting shadows across his face.

"I ran into Tom again during a case that coincided with the Robbery division. He had heard about what happened, everyone had, and he invited me out for coffee, just as friends," she confesses, hating that it feels wrong, like she's purging her sins to him. As if she cheated on the man listening to her with that tightly squared jaw and downturned lips, cheated on a ghost. "He was supportive, a good friend, and he - he knows what you were to me, never tried to change that."

"So you married him? Tom Demming?" he clarifies, leaning back into the elevated head of his hospital bed, and she circles around to the opposite side, approaches him with bated breath.

"All those years ago, before you and I were ever together, I could have loved him. I - I wanted to love him, but-"

"And now you can," he finishes for her, but Kate shakes her head, can already feel him shutting down on her.

"No, that's not-"

Castle raises his right hand to his face, presses his knuckles to his eyes. "I want to be happy for you, I - I can learn to be happy for you, but it hasn't been six years for me. It's been a day. Yesterday, you were my fiancée and now you're married to another man-"

"Rick, please just let me finish-"

"I can't handle any more right now," he croaks out, refusing to look at her. "I know I asked for it, but I - I can't-"

"Okay," she rasps, clearing her throat and scraping a hand through her hair, trying to pull it together. No need for both of them to fall apart at the same time. "I - I should go. I have to-"

"No, don't." He drops his hand from his face, lets her see the bloodshot eyes and the dull grey that has consumed the blues of his irises. "I'm sorry, I know this is - god, this is hard, but please don't go."

"I'll come back later," she promises, walking back around to the chair she had been occupying for most of the day, snagging her jacket.

" _Kate-_ "

"I have to go pick up my daughter from school." She finally chokes it out through the tears clogging her throat, shrugging on the jacket with shaking hands and thoughtlessly touching her fingertips to her lips, brushing them across the top of his sheet covered foot. It's a habit she thought died with him, and she strides out of his hospital room before she can lose her composure.

She makes it to the parking garage before the sobs break free again, and she crumples into the front seat of her car before she's forced to succumb to the gasping cries and the cracking open of her chest. She wants to go back, just wants to go back to their wedding day, to before. She wants to redo it all, to have not kept the pregnancy a surprise she was saving for their honeymoon.

She just wants to go home, home to him.

* * *

Kate doesn't come back for the rest of the day, but when his daughter returns, Alexis explains to him that Kate called her that afternoon, told her that there were things that needed to be taken care of at home, that she would be back first thing tomorrow.

"It's because I got upset," he sighs, dropping his head back against his pillow.

"Upset about what?" Alexis hedges, because of course, his daughter must know all of it.

"Kate married Schlemming."

" _What_?"

Castle winces at the slip, tries not to feel so grossly bitter and heartbroken, but yeah, he doubts that's going to change anytime soon. "Demming. She told me about him."

Alexis sighs and ventures closer to his bedside, takes a gentle seat near his hip. "Is that… all she told you?"

"They have a daughter," he mumbles, and something about the image of Kate as a mother just crushes him deeper, digs a fresh hole in his chest.

They talked about kids prior to his disappearance, about an even greater future together.

 _When the time comes, there is no way I'm going to let you take care of our baby on your own._

So many plans he set his heart on, vanished.

"Kate didn't… talk to you about her?"

"She didn't mention her until she was leaving to pick her up from school, but I… I kinda didn't give her the chance to go any further after she told me about Tom," he admits, partially disappointed in himself for losing his composure, for inadvertently chasing Kate out the door. But can anyone really blame him?

Waking up after six years that he can't recall, only to lose nearly everything he held dear in a single day has left him hanging on by a thread.

"Dad," Alexis murmurs, snagging his hand and holding it between both of hers, commandeering his gaze next and ensuring that she has his full attention. "There's still a lot you don't know and I - I want to tell you right now, but the things you don't know aren't mine to tell. So, when Kate comes back tomorrow, I can't imagine how hard it is for you, but just try to listen to her."

Castle nods dumbly, confused by his daughter's pleas, by this new reality he's woken up to. "I - okay. Okay, I will."

But he just wants to go back to sleep, to dream of his old life, where Alexis is still just barely an adult and his mother is in the city and Kate still loves him.

* * *

After Kate picks Lily up from school, she takes her to Remy's for a milkshake, just to see her face light up and watch the smile brighten her eyes, a quality her daughter inherited from her father even if the blend of amber and greens matches Kate's. Listening to Lily recount her day at school takes her mind off of the way her world has been turned upside down, gracing her with a welcome dose of normalcy. She pays attention as Lily babbles about her current favorite book, about the imaginary world she's been creating in her notebook of drawings that she lays out across the diner's table for Kate to see and express her awe over.

It's been the most bittersweet sensation, to raise a daughter who reminds her so much of Castle, who possesses the same childlike wonder and vast imagination. He would have been so proud of her, so in love with her, just like Kate is. He _will_ be, she insists to herself, there's no way he wouldn't adore a child of his, but especially Lily.

Because no matter what happens, Castle will finally know his daughter and Lily will finally know him and that is her only true priority now. It has to be; she doesn't know if anything else - anything between _them_ \- is possible, or if too much damage has already been done.

By the time they return to the apartment, she has just enough time to set Lily up with her homework in her room before Tom steps through the doorway, no small talk or pleasantries on his tongue, only anxiety and questions in his eyes.

"What do you want to do?"

It's the first thing he says to her, the only thing they've both been thinking about all day, and she isn't ready for the conversation, but there's no avoiding it either.

"I don't know."

"Are you still… in love with him?"

"Tom-"

"It was different when he was dead, when I was competing with a ghost-"

"He was never dead to me," she hisses and Tom backs down, never up for a fight with her, even if it comes to fighting _for_ her.

Tom Demming is safe, a haven for her to dwell in, to heal in. He's given her friendship, a partnership, and she loves him, she does. Just never in the way she loves Castle, never with that raw, aching passion that sets her soul on fire. Never in the way that can last if faced against the latter.

And Tom knows it, has always known it, but of course, he's holding out hope that she'll choose differently this time. Stay safe.

"I'll stay with my brother tonight."

"You don't need to leave," she sighs, but her husband drifts forward, brushes a kiss to the top of her head, and then he begins packing a small bag in their bedroom.

Quick, painless, leaving her feeling hollow for the rest of the night.

"Momma, are you and Tom getting a divorce?"

Later that night, Kate sputters from her spot behind Lily on the bed in her little girl's room, pausing in the brushing of her hair to stare down at the back of her daughter's head. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because you and him were whisper fighting before dinner and then he left," Lily shrugs, flipping the page of her book in front of her, grazing her fingers over the illustration of a dragon. "That's what Amanda's parents did it all the time before they got divorced."

"What have I said about spying?" Kate huffs, tapping the top of Lily's head with the comb, but her daughter only chuckles. "Tom and I just had a disagreement, that's all, so he went to have a sleepover with his brother to cheer up."

"Does that mean you're going to have a sleepover with me?" Lily asks, tilting her head back to stare at her mother and Kate grins, taps her nose with her finger and watches it scrunch.

"Want to build a blanket fort in here for us to sleep?"

Lily squeals and scrambles off of her bed to the closet on the other end of the room, pulling out her extra sets of blankets and sheets for construction.

Kate lets out a breath as Lily begins dragging the assortment of bedding across the floor, musters the courage to mention Castle, to gauge what Lily's reaction to his existence may be.

Of course, she has always made their daughter well aware of who her father is, showing her pictures, videos, mementos Kate has kept that never fail to remind her of him, keeping her relationship with her older sister, Alexis, intact and strong, and celebrating Castle's birthday each year. Lily loves what she knows of her father, has often expressed dreams of wanting to meet him, always breaking Kate's heart with every wistful sigh of longing to know her dad.

But daydreaming about the memory of her father and meeting the man himself are two very different things.

"Momma?" Lily chirps, dropping a pile of sheets on the edge of her bed, and Kate shifts forward to help her sort through them.

"Hmm?"

"Why are you sad today? Is it 'cause Tom said mean things about Daddy?" Kate's fingers stumble over the fabric and Lily momentarily abandons her sorting of sheets, climbs onto the bed, into Kate's lap, and wraps her arms around her mother's neck. "You miss him bad today?"

Kate cradles Lily closer, pressing her lips to the top of her daughter's head, brushing her fingers through the lengthening strands of her hair as she closes her eyes and forces the sting of tears dwelling along her lids to calm, remain at bay. She can't afford to cry in front of Lily, has to approach this right and oh so carefully.

"I miss him bad," Kate nods, taking a moment to swallow down the emotion before she pulls back, cups Lily's cheek in one of her palms. "Baby, you know how I - how I never found Daddy after he disappeared?"

"Yeah," Lily sighs, her lips falling into that solemn frown. "But he could still be out there, Momma. He could still be."

"I know, I know, that's... what I wanted to talk to you about," Kate murmurs, lowering her hand to Lily's side. "If we ever found Daddy, or if he found his way home, would you… want to meet him?"

"Of course! I always want to meet him," Lily smiles, untangling her arms from Kate's neck and shifting from her lap to return to the blankets at the foot of her bed. "I hope he comes home all the time."

And somehow, that eases some of the weight from Beckett's chest.

After they've brushed their teeth together side by side in the bathroom and turned on the twinkle lights that glow like stars above the tent of bedding, Lily stands in the middle of her mattress, holding up the center of mass for Kate while she drapes the sheets across the bed, using the frame to create their fort and crawling inside with Lily.

"Hey Lil, tomorrow I have someone I want you to meet," she murmurs, sliding beneath the pretty purple comforter and propping up on her elbow while Lily lies down in the bed, snuggling beneath the blankets. "Do you want to come with me in the morning after breakfast?"

"Okay," Lily yawns, drawing her plush stuffed elephant to her chest and turning towards Kate, cuddling into her chest. "But only because it's Saturday, don't wanna miss school."

"No, no missing school, I promise," Kate chuckles softly as she settles down next to her, banding an arm around her daughter, snuggling her closer. "I love you, Peanut."

"Love you too."

Kate lies awake in her daughter's bed for a long time, thinking (and worrying) about Castle, about how he'll react to meeting Lily, to learning of her existence and the truth behind it. Part of her knows it's impossible that he won't fall in love with their daughter, that the discovery will heal some of the heartache she knows he's enduring, and it helps quell some of the chaos she's been harboring since nearly four a.m. this morning.

But it's only in this moment, with Lily huddled against her chest, that Kate has felt even a small semblance of peace in these last twenty-four hours.


	4. Chapter 4

When Castle awakens the next morning, it's still dark outside, an early morning grey only just beginning to bleed through the sky, and his mother is occupying Kate's chair. He almost doesn't recognize her. The fiery red of her hair has been extinguished and tamed, falling flat, her makeup practically nonexistent, and her eyes are so dull, so tired. God, what has he done to his mother?

He attempts to express his concerns, but she dismisses them before they can leave his lips, cupping his cheeks in both of her hands.

"Don't worry about me, darling," Martha whispers, her gushing over his return finally beginning to subside. "Oh Richard, there's nothing to worry about anymore. You're home. That's all that matters."

Alexis returns not long after - she finally accepted his insistence that she sleep in her own bed last night - and he's so grateful for his family, to be surrounded by the two redheads that have been pillars of strength for him throughout the entirety of his life. But he can't ignore the fact that one member is missing, can't silence the yearning to witness Kate walk through the door.

"She'll be here, Dad," Alexis murmurs, noticing him watching the empty doorway, flicking his eyes to the clock.

The hospital plans to release him at eleven and it's already nearing eight.

"Oh, is Katherine coming by?" Martha inquires with a gleeful clap of her hands. "Is she bringing-"

"Yes," Alexis answers quickly, shooting his mother a look, and he sighs. He hates being left out of the loop, not even having an idea of what the loop contains. "She texted me half an hour ago, she'll be here soon."

Martha stands from the chair and starts for the door, lacking her usual saunter, only worrying him further. "I'm going to see if I can catch her first."

"Whatever you're working so hard to keep from me, I hope I find out soon before I snap," Castle mutters, huffing when Alexis plants a patronizing kiss to his cheek.

"Trust me, it's worth the wait, and it'll… help. No matter what happens."

He knows Alexis means to be encouraging, but her declaration only induces a nervous flutter within his stomach.

* * *

She's almost taken aback to find Martha in the hallway of the second floor, having nearly forgotten all about the older woman's arrival from London, but Lily isn't.

"Gram!" she gasps, releasing Kate's hand to race up to her grandmother.

She giggles in delight when Martha catches her in an embrace, lifting her up and into her arms, spinning her around.

"Kiddo!" Martha chuckles, smattering Lily's cheek with kisses. "Look at you, so grown up and gorgeous! Just like your mother - oh, Katherine."

Kate accepts the hook of Martha's arm around her neck, returns the tight embrace, not realizing how much she has missed his mother, her hugs and use of Kate's full name, until now.

"Hey, Martha, how has London been?"

"Oh, dreadfully lovely," Martha replies with a wave of her hand as Kate steps back and helps ease Lily back down to her feet.

"That's a cont-contradiction," Lily announces proudly and Martha gasps.

"Beautiful and brilliant," Martha praises, eliciting a soft blush in the apples of Lily's cheeks, and Kate grins, touches Martha's arm.

"Rick doesn't know yet," she informs his mother under her breath. "I want to introduce them, but I need to - his doctor said to prepare him for these kinds of things first. Do you mind-"

"Ah, yes, good plan, darling," Martha concurs, glancing down to Lily with an outstretched hand. "How about Lily accompany me to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee and we can return in five minutes?"

"Sure, Gram," Lily chirps, accepting her grandmother's wiggling fingers.

"Thank you," Kate breathes, giving Martha's shoulder a gentle squeeze before lowering her gaze to her daughter. "Listen to Gram, okay? No wandering off."

"Yes, Momma," Lily drawls, skipping alongside Martha as she begins to lead her toward the elevator. "I'm so happy you're back, Gram." She can hear Lily raving once they step inside the lift. "Can you not leave anymore?"

Kate blows out a breath as the doors slide shut, says a prayer for Martha, and turns on her heel, back towards Castle's hospital room.

* * *

There's a soft knock on the door right before Kate slips inside and his heavy heart loses some of its weight, palpitates and flutters in unison as she offers him a small smile.

"Hey Castle," she greets, approaching his hospital bed while Alexis pops up from her seat near the window.

"Told you," she quips, sharing a quick hug with Kate on her way to the door. "See you guys later."

"Wait, where are you going?" Castle asks, tearing his eyes away from Kate just in time to see his daughter walking out.

"To go find Gram and give you a chance to talk," she calls over her shoulder, letting the door swing shut behind her.

Kate chuckles, bites down on her bottom lip as she glances back to him.

"Listen, Castle-"

"No, me first," he murmurs, sitting up in the hospital bed and swinging his legs over the side so he can face her, grateful they replaced his hospital gown with a robe and sweatpants earlier in the morning. "I'm sorry, about yesterday. I know that this is probably just as hard for you as it is for me, but… I have no doubts that you're a brilliant mother, Kate. And regardless of how I feel about anything else, I'm so happy for you."

Kate sighs and pulls the chair she's been favoring a little closer, takes a seat so that she's directly in front of him. He watches her lace her fingers together before she must think better of it, touches one to his knee. It spreads warmth through his patella.

"That's what I want to talk to you about," she says, her eyes flickering up to meet his, sweeping over his face. "When I said I couldn't let myself drown in your disappearance, it was because of Lily. If it hadn't been for her… Castle, losing you was worse than losing my mom," she gets out, and shit, she's breaking what remains of his heart, ripping the last of the battered thing to shreds. "It was a different kind of pain, but it was so much more - visceral, debilitating, and I just didn't know how I was going to survive this too."

She momentarily withdraws the hand from his knee to tuck her hair behind her ear, her throat working through a difficult swallow, and her lips in a hard line. She's trying so hard not to cry while he puts forth equal effort into not touching her, holding her, promising her it will be okay.

Because it's not. They are _so_ far from okay, so far that he doesn't know if they can actually find their way back.

"But the only thing that kept me going was knowing what you would have wanted, that I needed to be strong for our daughter."

His eyes snap back to hers, his heart snagging on the cage of his ribs and going still.

Our daughter.

"I found out I was pregnant just a couple of weeks before the wedding," she whispers, her hand beginning to slip away from his knee, but he captures it with shaking fingers, clings to her, to the story. "I wanted to - to surprise you, in the Maldives," she rasps with a sad smile, reminiscent and tragic and he nearly chokes on his own stuttered breath.

Pregnant, she was pregnant when - and he - oh no. Pregnant with their child and all alone. No, no, that makes it even _worse_.

"She's here, with your mom right now," she adds, staring down at the link of their hands dangling between them. "She knows who you are, that you disappeared, but I haven't told her that you're here. Only that she's meeting someone special today."

"She's here?" he repeats hoarsely.

Kate nods, offering him a nervous smile, and he tugs on her hand, draws her up to stand in between his knees. He's surprised and oh so overwhelmed with gratitude when she steps into him, loosely circles her arms around him in a hug, and doesn't even try to hide how badly her body is trembling.

"We have a daughter?" he whispers the revelation once more into her hair, feeling Kate's arms tighten around his torso. It elicits a slight sting in his wound, but he doesn't care, doesn't acknowledge the fleeting jolt of pain.

"She's so much like you, Rick," she murmurs, pulling back but remaining close, blinking away the glittering threat of tears that hasn't left her eyes. "It made me miss you even more, but it also made it feel like a part of you was still here."

"Kate." It's not his right anymore, not while she's married to someone else, when she's no longer his, but Castle submerges his hand in her hair, closes his eyes in relief when she follows the draw of his arm. She drops her forehead to rest against his, the gesture like coming home. "I - I should have found my way back to you sooner. I should have found a way to-"

"Shh," she shushes him, hooking her fingers at his wrist and pressing her thumb to the vulnerable skin inside, where his pulse beats hard for her, their daughter. "You're here now."

It's not enough, it'll never be enough, but Castle swallows down the remorse, the regret. "And she - she knows about me?"

Kate's brow creases against his. "Of course. I wasn't going to let her grow up not knowing who her father was, how much I loved him, how much he would have loved her."

"But what about - do you think she'll be okay with meeting me?" Castle inquires, opening his eyes to look up at her. "I mean, Tom-"

"Isn't her father," she fills in calmly, her own eyes sliding open to meet his gaze. "Tom has been in her life for the last few years and he's been a great stepdad, but he never tried to be her dad and Lily never wanted him to. I never wanted him to."

The click of the door has Kate lifting away from him, stepping back, but she doesn't let go of his wrist.

"Incoming, Kate," Alexis warns, popping her head in the doorway. But he can already hear the scamper of small feet, the click of his mother's heels hurrying behind, and then the door is swinging open.

And a little girl with chocolate brown hair and Kate's eyes is skipping inside, a smile on her lips as she finds her mother, but stopping short when her gaze lands on him.

"Lily," Kate murmurs, slipping free of his limp grasp to stand beside her daughter, _their_ daughter, whose eyes are wide and currently glued to him. "This is who I was telling you about, who I wanted you to meet. This is-"

"My dad," Lily whispers.


	5. Chapter 5

Lily glances up at her before she takes a tentative step forward, inching towards Castle with the caution that comes with uncertainty, but the wonder of discovery illuminating her gaze. And it steals Kate's breath to realize Castle's expression echoes their daughter's in that moment, to see the similarities in person, the shared features on display.

Castle looks up to her before he speaks, as if he's seeking her approval, and Kate nods, holds her breath as he musters a smile for his daughter that breaks her heart.

"Hi Lily," he greets softly, working so hard to keep his voice steady. "It's so nice to meet you."

Kate watches Lily shift, shy and unsure, before her quiet voice breaks the momentary silence.

"Hi, you don't look the same," Lily comments thoughtfully and Castle tilts his head in question, glances to Kate for help. But Lily begins to explain before she has to. "In my picture book Momma made me, you don't have a beard. Or a sunburn. Were you lost on a beach?"

"I - I don't know," Castle replies, his hand rising to touch his own face, the heated flesh and overgrown stubble.

"You don't know?" Lily inquires, shifting in closer, intrigued and concerned. Kate opens her mouth to save him the trouble of trying to explain, but Castle lifts a subtle hand from atop his thigh to stop her before she can.

"My memory is lost right now," he reveals with a sad smile. "I'm trying to find it."

"Oh! Mom can help, she's a detective," Lily announces with a returning smile that brightens her entire face. "And I'll help too, since Momma always says I'm a mixture of you and her and she said you used to help her solve all the mysteries."

An ember of memory sparks in Castle's eyes and he grins back at her, nods his confirmation. "That's right, we were partners."

"Yeah, Momma said you were even better than some of the real detectives on the force," she adds with a proud curve of her lips that has Kate's cheeks going warm, because he certainly never needed to know that. "Are you staying?" Lily asks suddenly, clasping her hands in front of her, hopeful. "Can you be… my dad now?"

"I want to," Castle lets out, a little breathlessly, meeting Kate's eyes over Lily's head with so much hope burning in his. "I really want to be."

"Great!" Lily beams, taking the final necessary step forward to reach out and touch his hand, pleased when Castle flips his palm to clasp her small fingers in his. "I'm glad you came back. We've been waiting forever."

Castle's smile crushes her, the shine in his eyes that he tries so valiantly to blink away. "Sorry about that," he whispers, but Lily shakes her head.

"It's okay. I know it wasn't your fault," Lily assures him. "Momma said you had to be trying to come home the whole time you were gone."

"I was," he answers quickly, trying to clear his throat. But his words still scrape past his lips, rake like sandpaper over his tongue, over Kate's pummeled heart, along her bruised ribs. "Because even though my memories are missing right now, there's no way I wouldn't have spent every second of every day trying to get back to your mom, to meet you."

Lily lets go of Castle's hand to step into his side, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her smiling cheek to his stomach.

"Just don't leave again."

Castle's large palm hesitates midair, hovering over the back of Lily's head before gently descending to cradle her skull.

"I won't," he murmurs, lifting his eyes back to Kate, holding her gaze with too much in his. "Promise."

* * *

He learns all about Lily in the hours that follow, her favorite colors and books, her favorite subjects in school and how she hates math, how much she adores her mom and drawing pictures.

"See?" Lily murmurs. She sits beside him on the edge of the hospital bed with a battered old notebook open on her lap, filled to the brim with pages of illustrations that are actually quite impressive for a six year old. "That's where I imagined you went."

Lily points to a page covered in a melange of greens and browns, a dark sky. The woods.

"Lily," Kate interrupts from the chair in front of them, but Castle catches her gaze with a subtle shake of his head.

He can handle this, can handle witnessing his youngest daughter, whom he only learned the existence of a few hours ago, showing him physical evidence of the time she has spent wondering where her father went, where he's been throughout the entirety of her life.

"A forest?" Castle asks and Lily nods, sweeping her fingers over the page. "You think I may have been lost out there?"

"No, someone took you," Lily corrects, her brow scrunching ever so slightly as she stares down at the page. "Someone bad, like all the guys you and Mommy arrested."

"You could be right," he concedes, wondering just how close Lily may actually be to the truth with this theory.

The door clicks open as Lily turns the page, vibrant flowers blooming from top to bottom, and Alexis steps inside with an armful of folded clothes.

"Hey guys," she grins, lowering the pants and dress shirt onto the foot of the bed. "Dad, Doctor Xanders said he was going to be in to check on you soon, go over your discharge instructions, but you'll be free to go within the hour."

"You get to leave here?" Lily asks, her gaze swinging to her mother before he can answer. "Does he get to stay with us? Come home now?"

Kate sighs from the chair next to his bed and Castle quickly attempts to regain Lily's attention, pasting on a smile for her benefit even while his insides are twisting at the idea of going to a home without Kate, without Lily.

"I'm going to be staying with Alexis, but I'm sure you can come and visit-"

"No," Lily protests, closing her notebook and hopping down from the bed, leaving it at his side as she goes to Kate with a frown claiming her lips. "Momma, can't he come with us? Or can't we go with him and Lexi?"

"Lily," Kate murmurs, spreading her knees for Lily to step in close and reaching for her hands, but Lily holds them hostage against her chest.

"But we just found him again! He could disappear-"

"Hey," Castle calls softly, leaning forward to place a gentle hand on Lily's shoulder. "I won't disappear. I'm not going anywhere, trust me."

"You can't say that!" Lily argues, panic flushing her brown eyes, and Kate reaches for their daughter's face.

He watches Kate cup Lily's cheeks in her palms, gaining their daughter's reluctant but full attention.

"Lily, I promise, your dad's not going anywhere and you are going to see him all the time-"

"I want him to come home with us," Lily gets out, her voice beginning to tremble. "Why can't he? Don't you still love him?"

Kate's lips part and her cheeks flush, but the woman he knew is good at maintaining her composure, and she doesn't fail now. Kate reins in her surprise, her frustration, with a nod.

"Of course I do."

"Then-"

"What if Lily stays at the loft, just for tonight?" Alexis asks, shooting Kate an apologetic look. If Lily is anything like Kate, though, just as stubborn as her mother, Alexis's suggestion is probably as good of a compromise as they're going to get. "Like when she's stayed with me for a weekend?"

Kate purses her lips, but glances back to Lily. "Good idea, Peanut?"

"Yes, but…" Lily glances down to her shoes, pursing her lips in an exact imitation of Kate. "Can you stay too?"

"Lil, you and me always have fun together on our girls' weekends," Alexis chimes in, approaching their trio and descending to her haunches beside her younger sister. "Only, this time, it'll be a girls plus dad weekend."

"I want us all to be together," Lily whispers, huddling closer until Kate eventually hoists Lily into her lap. She drops her head to Kate's chest, muffling her next words, but not muting them. "I want us to be a family."

Kate closes her eyes, rests her chin to the top of her daughter's head, and he hates this. Hates that the premise of going home means separately now, hates that he has a little girl who barely knows him but is already terrified of losing him, hates the anguish carved into Kate's face at the dilemma.

"Okay," she concedes, wrapping her arms around Lily and rubbing her back. "But just for tonight."

Lily nods against her, Alexis sighs in relief, but the knot in Castle's stomach fails to loosen, the rock sitting atop his chest only growing heavier.

He wants to be a family too.

* * *

Kate allows Lily to ride to the loft with Rick, Martha, and Alexis, promising her daughter that she just has to return to the apartment to pack an overnight bag for them both and that she'll join them shortly, even though the idea still has her feeling as if she's on the verge of vomiting.

She isn't ready for this, could barely handle watching Lily with Castle all morning, the lump in her throat too thick to breathe past. She isn't ready to go back to the home she once shared with him, to be assaulted by the memories she has spent so much time mourning.

Kate collapses onto the couch in her living room with the packed duffel bag at her feet, buries her head in her hands and knots her fingers in her hair. She screws her eyes shut and practices those breathing techniques Doctor Burke taught her so long ago.

Oh, she should really call Doctor Burke.

"Kate?"

Her head snaps up at the sound of Tom's voice to see him coming through the front door, an ache beginning to form between her eyebrows, because she still isn't ready to handle this either.

"Hey," she murmurs, her brow furrowing as she checks the time on her father's watch. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, it's my lunch break," he explains, lowering his keys to the kitchen counter. "I figured I should come by while you were at the hospital, get some more of my stuff. I packed a bag this morning, so I thought I'd grab it and take it over to Seth's now."

"Tom, I never said it was over," she sighs, but her husband purses his lips, comes into the living room to join her.

"Isn't it, though?" he murmurs, sitting down beside her on the couch, propping his elbows on his knees and twisting his hands together.

She doesn't know how to answer that.

"I knew from the start what I was getting myself into, that even if it was slim, there was this kind of risk involved," he adds, the corner of his mouth quirking with a hint of a smile that holds far too much sorrow. "I always thought you were the one that got away, that we could have been so great together. But I knew that you were still in love with someone else. That you always would be."

She can't gather the courage to look at him, to see the heartbreak on his face that she hears in his voice, and she hates herself for this, for hurting a man who has been nothing but good to her.

"I love you, so does Lily," she whispers. "And you do make me happy, make us happy, you have to know that."

"I do," he assures her, placing a gentle hand on her knee and squeezing. "And I love you too, Kate. So much. The last three years - getting to know you again, knowing Lily - have meant everything to me. Getting to love you for even a little while has meant everything to me. I just… know it's not the same for you, not enough. That it can't be."

She closes her eyes to stop the tears, her eyes already throbbing from the amount of them she's shed in just the last twenty-four hours, and leans into Tom's side, rests her cheek to his shoulder.

"If I thought you could love me while Richard Castle was alive, I would stay," he says, his breath shaking on its exhale past his lips. "But I can't - I can't watch you choose him over me again."

He kisses the top of her head and squeezes her knee one last time before he shifts to stand. And she lets him go.

"We can explain it to Lily together once things have settled down," Tom murmurs while she wipes at her eyes, staring out the windows behind the sofa and squaring his jaw to keep his emotions in check. "For now, just focus on making sure that you're both okay."

He forces a smile for her and turns towards the bedroom, but if this is how it ends, she has to say her piece too.

"Tom," she calls before he can go, standing from the couch and drifting close enough to touch his arm. "You always deserved more than this, deserved someone who didn't make you feel like anything less than first choice. Just - don't ever forget that."

He hugs her, strong arms around her that have comforted her too many times to count. But the embrace is brief, drenched in a goodbye, and he releases her after only a handful of seconds.

"I'll see you," he breathes, disappearing into the bedroom to grab a thick suitcase of clothing. He hauls it out the door without another word, without looking back.

She watches the door for a moment, allows his absence to spread through the apartment, through her.

When he proposed to her, her acceptance was reluctant, all wrong, but it felt like a logical next step, a potentially good example for her daughter. She didn't listen to the quiet but sharp revolt in the hollow of her heart, the tug in her gut when he slid the ring on her finger, and she regrets that even more now. For his sake, for Rick's too.

Kate stares down at the silver wedding band on her finger from the simple ceremony they had at the courthouse just under a year ago. He wanted a big wedding in a beautiful church; she deemed any kind of formal ceremony as cursed. And of course he settled for what she wanted, he was always settling.

She leaves her wedding ring on the nightstand that borders what had been his side of the bed and then follows Tom's footsteps out of her apartment.


	6. Chapter 6

Even though the gap in his memories has him feeling as if he were just here yesterday, it's strangely surreal to be back in his loft. The emptiness that now seems to inhabit the space is palpable, overwhelming, despite Alexis's efforts to make the place feel more like home prior to his arrival.

He knows that his daughter still lives here, but from the sounds - and looks - of it, she typically occupies the place solely for sleep, the rest of her time spent at work. The hints of his mother's theatric tastes seem to have gone along with her. Any trace of Kate has practically disappeared too, none of her artwork on the walls, her trinkets gone from his shelves, the framed photos of her no longer occupying his cleared desk space.

"Sorry, Dad," Alexis apologizes nervously when he inquires about that last part, but his heart eases a little as she tugs open the drawers to reveal all of his things. "I would use your desk to work sometimes and some things were just - too hard to look at."

Of course, he doesn't fault Alexis in the least for that, dismisses her apology right away. He does begin to feel a bit better, though, a little more hopeful, once he begins to rearrange his belongings across the hardwood surface, smiling at the photos of a young Alexis, his mother, Kate.

But he's missing someone now.

"Hey, do we have any photos of Lily?" he asks, emerging from his office to find his daughters - wow, he still can't believe he has two now - in the kitchen. They're sharing a snack that Alexis must have made at the bar, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into the shapes of stars.

Lily glances up from her sandwich to point to the refrigerator. "Alexis keeps all the important pictures up there."

Castle drifts towards the stainless steel doors with greedy eyes, his heart immediately swelling at the images he encounters.

There's an ultrasound pinned near the top, far enough along into the pregnancy that the baby can be seen with ease. There are pictures of Lily and Alexis over the years, even a few with Kate, her smiles tired and tamed. None of those unbidden grins that show glimpses of her teeth or moments of captured laughter he used to witness so frequently, but smiles nonetheless. There are a handful of photos of him as well, arranged amidst the collage, but he can only frown at those. The differences are obvious between the past he was a part of and the present that he isn't.

Castle startles at the sound of a key turning in the lock, the opening of the front door. But when Lily hops down from the barstool, he knows whom it must be and his heart picks up speed, skips a few beats.

"I'll take those up to my room for us, Momma," he hears Lily volunteer.

He steps out of the kitchen in time to watch Lily sling a royal purple backpack over one shoulder, dragging the larger black duffle behind her, while Kate looks on in amusement.

"Thank you, Peanut," Kate chuckles as Lily hustles towards the stairs. "Call if you need help, though."

"I will," Lily chirps. "But I won't." She trudges up one step and then another with the bag heavy on her back, her teeth grit in determination.

"She really is just like you," Castle grins, meeting her in the foyer and offering to take her coat out of habit, grateful when she lets him. She hesitates for a moment, but she lets him.

He's even more grateful when he opens the door to see that the closet near the entryway is still the same.

"You'd be surprised," Kate muses, watching him hang her coat with something soft in her eyes, eyes that are bloodshot and exhausted. As if she's been crying. "She inherited quite a few of her father's qualities, in my opinion."

Rick's lips twitch at that as he eases the closet door shut.

"You okay?" he asks, lowering his voice even though he can hear Alexis busy in the kitchen, depositing plates into the dishwasher.

"Are you?" she counters, scanning her eyes over his ill-fitting dress shirt, the jeans that hang a little too low on his hips. Because yeah, wherever he's been for the last few years obviously did not offer him the best diet.

"As okay as I can be," he shrugs, taking a step closer and brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. It's an impulse he probably should have ignored. But he loses his breath when Kate catches the back of his hand, holds his palm to her cheek.

It's then that he notices her wedding ring is missing.

But instead of relief or joy at the sudden realization, the potential of what it could mean, he only feels his stomach twist into even more knots.

"Me too," she breathes out, resting her cheek into his palm and quirking her lips for him.

"I know it's not - that we can't just go back, pick up where we left off as if nothing happened, that so much has… changed, but we'll find a way to be okay again, Kate. All of us, I promise," he whispers, wanting fiercely for her to believe him, wanting to believe it himself.

She squeezes his hand before lowering it from her cheek. The expression on her face isn't doubtful nor dismissing, but her features are too worn for positivity tonight.

Kate offers him a small nod before she starts for the stairs. "I hope you're right."

* * *

Being back in the loft isn't as uncomfortable as she feared it would be. Of course, she's been here too many times to count in the past six years, Lily even has a room upstairs, and she herself often spends time with Alexis in the living room, helping go over cases or simply talking through the snarls of emotion on the harder days. But it's different now that Castle is back.

She expects it to be awkward, and it is, to some degree, having dinner all together again, with four people instead of three, retiring to the guest bedroom upstairs with Lily rather than following him through his office when the night concludes, when he glances to her with longing that spears through her chest.

But she doesn't expect this sense of right, this sense of a homecoming, to nag at her, make her want to stay longer than just tonight.

Kate stays with Lily in her room, knowing Martha's is available since the older woman decided to opt for a hotel, jetlagged and weary from her traveling, but tonight, she needs the comfort of having her daughter close, of allowing the soft sound of her breathing to calm her as it did the night before.

She doesn't sleep, and eventually she grows restless as the night wears on into the early morning.

She ends up wandering through the loft at two a.m.. She's contemplating the idea of raiding his library, when she hears the sounds of distress coming from his bedroom. And things may be different now, they may no longer be together, six years may have passed, but that doesn't stop her from rushing inside his room the moment she hears those choked sounds, a muffled shout buried into his pillow.

"Castle," she murmurs, leaning over the side of the bed to catch his thrashing shoulders. She reaches out with one hand to flick on the lamp, and then strokes her fingers through his hair. "Rick, wake up."

"No, no," he gasps, jerking onto his side, curling in on himself. The movement exposes his back, where the t-shirt he wore to bed has ridden up.

The scars cause her to go still. The strip of his lower back that is visible is slim, but the glimpses of pink lines marring his flesh are thick, still healing, and without thinking, she allows her fingers to graze the edge of one that stretches towards his tailbone.

He arches away from her, hisses in phantom pain, and her heart constricts, catches fire in the same instance.

She'll kill whoever did this to him.

"Castle," she calls again, crawling onto the edge of the mattress, bending over the coiled ball of his body to cup his face in her hands, stroke her thumbs to the paper thin skin beneath his eyes. "Castle, it's me. You're with me. You're safe."

"No more," he gets out, his entire body trembling, his pulse beating hard beneath the heel of her palm. "Please-"

" _Rick_ ," she presses, her own voice beginning to crack. His eyes flash open, swing towards the source to find her hovering above him.

"Kate?" he rasps, staring up at her with hazy eyes, his pupils blown. His chest heaves so hard it shakes them both. "What - where-"

"You were dreaming," she whispers, brushing back the damp hair that clings to his forehead. "Did you… remember something?"

He gingerly shifts onto his back and her hands slip from his face to rest atop his chest, the front of t-shirt practically soaked through with sweat. His heart is still thundering against the cage of his ribs. Terrified.

"Just - dark, a dark place," he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. "Someone else there and - whip, something like a whip." Castle covers his face with both of his hands, trying to hide from her. He sucks in a breath, as if attempting to calm the rioting rhythm of his heart. "My back hurts."

She pins her lip between her teeth to stop it from trembling. Xanders mentioned the scars, but she hasn't seen them, hasn't let herself imagine how severe they might be, what he may have gone through to bear them.

"Here, let's get you out of these clothes," she whispers, curving one of her palms at his nape and easing him up into a sitting position. He shifts into her, curls himself around her and drops his head to the juncture between her neck and her collarbone, causing her for a second too long, before he remembers.

"Sorry," he grunts, quickly pulling away before she can lift her arms to hold him.

She sighs, rises from the bed and offers her hand to him instead. He takes it, standing on shaking legs for a moment before they enter the en suite together, the light blinding them both.

"I need to shave," he blurts, scrubbing at his jaw with his palm. "Look bad."

"Gotta wait for the sunburn to subside," she reminds him, leaving his side to retrieve a washcloth from the cabinet. She turns the sink's faucet to warm, running the water while Castle tugs the drenched shirt over his head.

The bullet graze on his side is still covered by the seal of a bandage, but Xanders assured them that he will be able to remove the bindings within a week, the stitches dissolving on their own. Kate avoids the surrounding tape once she rings the towel out over the sink, steps in close to wipe down his chest.

"You don't have to do this," he sighs, but Kate shakes her head, continues to cleanse his skin of the cold sweat that covers him, the residue of the nightmare.

"I want you to know that no matter what we are, Castle, I'm always going to care about you," she promises, mopping at his neck, beneath his jaw, watching his eyes flutter closed, wondering if she's somehow just made it all worse. "Let me just get your back."

He turns slowly and her fingers unintentionally go slack, lose their grip on the washcloth. It falls to the bathroom floor with an audible slap and Castle glances over his shoulder, his brow creasing with concern.

"Kate?"

But her eyes are stuck on the patterns marring his back, the crisscross of scars, the varying shades of faded white, pinks, light and dark, stretching from his shoulder blades to his waist.

"Castle," she rasps, dusting her fingertips to his massacred flesh, following a raised line, colliding with another. "What did they do to you?"

"I've only felt them," he mumbles, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "Listened to Xanders discuss them. I haven't looked, I don't - don't want to."

Her eyes dart back to the map of his skin that was once untouched, once sculpted and smooth beneath her hands. It has her biting back tears, dropping her forehead to his nape instead.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you," she chokes out, her lips whispering against his skin, and Castle reaches back for her, finds her hand and draws it around to hold against his chest.

"It's okay," he tries to soothe, brushing his thumb back and forth over her knuckles. "I don't remember. It's okay for now."

"No," she argues, but her words are falling apart, her voice wet and sloshing, and she lifts her other arm to wrap around him, to band with the other in hugging him from behind.

He seals one of her palms to his chest, over his heart, and Kate squeezes her eyes shut, relishes the steady pound of it beneath her hand.

"Whether you remember or not, I'm going to find out what happened to you, who did this to you," she vows, turning her head to rest her cheek to the top of his vertebrae. "I'm so sorry I never found you, that I didn't stop it-"

"Don't," he growls, slotting his fingers through hers, twining them together. "I would never blame you, Kate. I know that without having to remember. And I sure as hell don't blame you now."

She releases a trembling breath against his shoulder and withdraws from his back, her hand slipping free from his grasp. She bends to snag the washcloth from the floor, tightening her fingers around the damp fabric to stop them from shaking.

"I just… missing you was one thing," she murmurs, standing in front of him now, able to witness the anguish in his eyes, feeling it cleave through her chest, slice her in half. "Knowing you were going through this the entire time…"

Her sentence trails, the way she feels, the heartache and grief consuming her chest unable to be put into words, and Castle takes a tentative step forward, laces a careful arm around her shoulders, an innocent hug that she sinks into.

"I'm sure I missed you too," he says into her hair, rubbing his hand back and forth between her shoulder blades, as if she's the one in need of comfort. "Because there's no way I wouldn't have."

* * *

After they part in the bathroom, he changes into a clean shirt, prepared to attempt sleep once more. Of course, he doesn't want her to leave, to lose the comfort of her company, so he asks her to stay. To innocently lie in bed with him, keep the nightmares away. Like an idiot.

Kate gives him a sad smile, tilts her head towards the door. But it isn't rejection in her eyes, on her lips, and it reignites the waning little flame of hope flickering in his chest, keeps it alive.

"Lily," is all she says, explanation enough, and he whispers an apology that she dismisses.

Though, she does kiss him before she goes, a fleeting brush of her lips to his sun-seared cheek. And he thinks that somehow aids in allowing him to sleep through the remaining hours of the night without the horrors of nightmares invading his brain. Her touch like a talisman, warding off the evil he can't even remember.


	7. Chapter 7

The shifting of a body beside him, a dip of weight in the mattress, has him swimming towards the shore of consciousness hours later.

"Kate?" he slurs, turning towards the source of warmth. But it isn't Kate he encounters when he opens his eyes.

"No, it's Lily," the little girl greets, propped up in the bed beside him with her notebook open in her lap. "Morning, sleepyhead."

"Lily," Kate chastises on a hum, but there's a chuckle in her voice, amusement traveling in from somewhere outside of the room. Too far for his liking.

He lifts his head from his pillow to see her in the office, sitting at his desk with her laptop open in front of her. Her body is wrapped in a soft grey sweater, a worn looking pair of jeans that he thinks he actually recognizes from years past, and it almost takes him back. Makes him feel for just a moment as if this six year gap doesn't exist between them.

"What time is it?" he mumbles, sitting up next to Lily and scrubbing at his eyes. He blinks a few times, and wills the residual sleep lingering along his lids, gathering in the corners, to dissipate.

"It's almost noon," Lily informs him. "I wanted to wake you up earlier for breakfast, but Mommy and Alexis said you needed your sleep," she explains rather solemnly.

"Which he obviously did," Kate chimes in as her fingers dance across the keyboard, eliciting an itch in the tips of his own. But he has no idea if his brain possesses the power of creating stories any longer, if he's lost that too.

"Next time," he begins, leaning towards Lily and lowering his voice to a whisper. "You wake me whenever you want."

Lily grins, pleased with the newfound partnership, even more so when Kate huffs in disapproval.

"Did you have good dreams?" Lily asks, closing her notebook and squirming to shift onto her knees.

She sits back on her heels to stare up at him with curious eyes, but Castle hesitates at the question. He hears the cease of typing then, Kate getting up from his desk chair, and he quickly shrugs his shoulders.

"I don't know. I can't remember if I dreamed anything or not."

"I hate when that happens," Lily sighs, patting the top of her notebook. "I like to draw what I dream about when I wake up."

"Oh yeah? What'd you draw today?" he asks, flicking his eyes up to Kate as she enters the room. Her gaze is dark despite the sunlight that spills over her, holding enough memories of his dreams from the night before for the both of them.

"You," Lily quips, dropping her notebook into his lap and pointing to the page she easily flips back to. It displays a plethora of activity from top to bottom, corner to corner, all drawn solely in black pen. "I normally draw with lots of colors, but I left them upstairs when I came down with Momma to check on you, so she let me use one of her work pens."

"Wow, Lily," he praises, sweeping his eyes over the images of surprisingly well-sculpted figures, their bodies drawn to near perfection, defined facial features he can tell she's practicing to improve, along with varying areas of shading decorating the page, a flurry of symbols drawn in the background.

"I've had this one before, though," she explains, sounding slightly disappointed. "Momma goes out to find you - see she's wearing her vest. And I go with her even though she tells me not to. And we go all over the world and right before we finally get to you, I wake up."

Lily's innocent retelling of her dream leaves his chest feeling hollow, empty and aching.

"I'm glad you don't have to look anymore," Rick murmurs, moving to wrap an arm around her small shoulders without thinking. But Lily shoulders hunch at the contact, not expecting it, and he quickly shifts back, earns the curious flicker of her gaze. He wants to be able hug her, offer some reassurance, but instead, he lets Lily reclaim her notebook and watches her scoot to the edge of the bed.

She may be excited to have him back, to have finally met her father, but he almost manages to forget that Lily doesn't even _know_ him. That he's still nothing more than a stranger to this little girl.

"Me too, do you want breakfast now? Lexi kept it warm for you," she informs him, hopping down to the floor.

"Sure," Castle replies, pushing the tangle of blankets from his legs. He has to ease them over the side of the bed, his limbs feeling stiff, his bad knee alive with an aggravating pulse. "I'll be right there."

"Okay!" Lily chirps, skipping out of the room and through the study while Kate draws closer.

She lowers to the edge of the bed beside him, her lips quirking ruefully once Lily's disappeared.

"Sorry about that," she sighs, raking a hand through her hair, but Castle shakes his head, can't understand why his chest feels so very tight.

"No, I'm happy she has such a vivid imagination."

"Told you, she's like her dad. A real handful."

He glances at her through the corner of his eye, catches the beginnings of a smile on her lips that spread to his.

"I just hate that she's been dreaming about that," he admits. "I hate that all she knows about me is that I'm just some guy who disappeared into some deep, dark place."

"That isn't all she knows," Kate argues, twisting towards him, but he continues to glare down at his knees. "She knows that you're an amazing writer, that you were my partner and the best dad to Alexis."

"Kate," he sighs, but she covers his forearm with the drape of her hand. Her touch has always been an effective silencer.

"She knows that you made the best smiley face pancakes, that you would have game nights with her uncles at least once a week, that you hate spiders just like she does." Kate stretches her thumb to graze the inside of his wrist, brush along his pulse. "She knows our story."

He glances up to her from beneath his lashes, tries not to become distracted by how lovely the sentence sounds on her lips, how beautiful she looks under the stream of sunlight coming from his window and tangling in the locks of her hair.

"She's had me tell her the story of how we met practically every night since she was old enough to ask," she adds with a gentle twitch of her lips. "That little girl knows everything about you, she just hadn't met you yet. And yeah, it's only been a day and she's still getting to know you, but she already loves you, Castle. Just like I know you already love her."

He sighs, because yeah, of course he loves her. She's his daughter and even though he was unable to meet her prior to yesterday morning, to even know she was a possibility, the instinctual adoration flared up the moment he first laid eyes on her.

"I just don't want to overwhelm her."

"I'm more worried about her overwhelming you," she chuckles, withdrawing her hand from his arm and rising from the bed, waiting for him to join her. "Now come on, Alexis really did keep your breakfast warm."

Castle stands from the bed, grunting when his right knee buckles for a second before he can find his footing.

"You okay?" Kate asks, examining him head-to-toe with a critical eye. The horror born from the collection of scars decorating his back still lingers in the depths of her irises and he quickly nods in hopes to dispel it.

"Yeah, fine. Just that old skiing injury flaring up again," he promises, doing his best to stand tall and walk alongside her through the bedroom.

He follows Kate out into the living room, where their daughters are already camped out on the couch with the television on, searching through the channels.

He pauses to drop a kiss to the top of Alexis's head while Kate goes ahead of him to retrieve his plate from inside the oven.

"Morning, Pumpkin."

"Afternoon, Dad," she parrots, her grin encouraging as she glances up. "Sleep okay?"

"Best I have in years," he lies, even though, for all he knows, it may be completely true.

Kate's pouring him a cup of coffee when he continues on to the kitchen, but she hesitates halfway through, glancing towards the fridge.

"Coffee's good, Kate," he murmurs, climbing onto the barstool and curling his fingers around the fork next to his plate.

Of course, knowing it was once their best form of comfort food, Alexis made him pancakes. A smiley face of fruit stares up at him, bacon and eggs on the side, and he knows he has to be starving by now. He was barely able to eat even a fourth of his dinner last night, but his stomach churns at the sight of the eggs.

He drops the fork.

"Castle?" Kate's already coming around the bar when he glances up, her brow knitting in concern. "Hey, what's wrong?"

 _Sick of eggs yet, Ricky?_

"No," he mutters, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. But the sound of the voice, the flash of a bowl filled with runny scrambled eggs, splits through his head like a migraine burrowing through his skull.

The muffle of Kate's voice is closer, but he bows his head forward, tries to make it stop.

 _They're a great source of protein and we gotta keep you healthy. After all, you're in it for the long haul._

"Alexis, do you mind taking Lily upstairs for a second, grabbing her crayons?" The words disjointed, Alexis asking a question, the echo of footsteps grows louder and then disappearing.

"Rick," she calls again, her cool hands on his face, but he can barely breathe. He feels as if he's going to faint, bursts of white all consuming behind his eyes, still there even when he tries to open them. "Castle, you're with me. You're here with me." Kate keeps repeating it, saying the words like a mantra until his heartbeat stops hurting with every throb, until the blinding whiteness overtaking his vision subsides, and he can finally open his eyes to her.

"Too many eggs," he chokes out, feeling insane. But Kate isn't looking at him like he's crazy.

"You had a memory?" she murmurs, her body pressed against his side, shielding him as her hand drapes at the back of his neck, anchors him.

"I don't want to remember," he croaks, ashamed of it, but if he's freaking out over scrambled eggs, who knows what else will set him off.

"Hey, Castle, it's okay," she whispers, scratching softly at his scalp. Like she used to whenever they would have a rough case, a bad day, and he zeroes in on the gentle scratch of her nails. "Just stay with me. I'm not going to make you eat the eggs."

A ragged piece of laughter scrapes its way up his throat, even though he knows she isn't going for funny, not at all. But he feels her deflate with relief beside him nonetheless, dropping her forehead to his temple. They don't speak for a few minutes after that and he's grateful that she stays, still and warm with her body so close and her breath fluttering against his jaw. He's grateful that she doesn't press for him to talk about it.

"He - he made me eat eggs, needed me to healthy. Healthy enough to stay alive," he recalls, forcing himself to stare down at the fluffy egg whites on the plate in front of him, to quell the instinctual response of his body's panic.

Kate straightens a little beside him, but doesn't step away, doesn't drop her hand from his nape. "He?"

But Castle shakes his head. "I only heard the voice. It was like… a flashback?"

"Like PTSD," she murmurs, her fingers thoughtlessly smoothing along the skin below his ear, driving him mad in the best way. A good distraction.

"You knew right away," he realizes, finally turning to look up at her, reading the understanding in her eyes. "That's why you sent Lily and Alexis upstairs, before it could get bad."

"I never wanted anyone to see me during my episodes," she says with a shrug. "It's hard enough to get through without an audience, especially when it's your daughters. Whom I should probably go check on."

"Thank you," he sighs, flexing his fingers before reclaiming the fork he let fall. He has to wait for the shaking of his hand to subside before he stabs a piece of fruit.

Kate squeezes his shoulder before she goes, strength infused in her fingertips and leaking into his bones.

"Always."

She makes him believe for a fraction of a second that it's all okay.


	8. Chapter 8

Kate insists on cooking dinner that night, adamant that Alexis needs a break. And although his daughter does her best to put up a believable fight, Kate can tell the younger woman is grateful when she gives in, relieved to have someone else take over the kitchen.

Castle joins her at the kitchen island where she's laid out ingredients that might work for a variety of dishes. After some coaxing on her part, they decide on pasta casserole, so she hands him a knife while she heads for the stove.

"I know what you're doing," he murmurs while she boils a pot of water and he chops vegetables, but she merely arches an eyebrow at him without looking up.

"No idea what you're talking about," she answers, pouring the pasta into the water, maneuvering around him for seasonings. All while trying not to think about how domestic it all feels, how familiar. They did this dance over six years ago, when she started spending more nights at the loft than her own apartment, using his kitchen more than hers.

She used to spend a lot of time in this kitchen with him, doing a lot more than cooking, but she's trying not to think about that either.

"Well, I appreciate it," he says anyway, bumping her hip when she sets up beside him to begin mixing the sauce. "But this won't have to be a regular thing, you worrying about what food may trigger a panic attack."

"I know," she shrugs, even though she doesn't, even though she's been obsessing over the small clues he's already inadvertently dropped.

She has no idea what he went through, what the extent of his torture has been, only that his captor wanted to keep him alive and functioning. Keeping Castle healthy and in functioning condition seems contrary to the vivid scars on his back. Why beat a man near to death and then nurse him back to health?

All she _does_ know is what Castle taught her over twelve years ago, early on in their partnership - there's always a story. They just have to do some searching to find this one.

"Just keep chopping, Castle," she murmurs, watching his lips quirk and feeling her heart swell.

He doesn't remember, is still living as if their scheduled wedding was only two days ago, this new life like an alternate universe for him in which he never left. But that doesn't mean he's okay. Those memories, whether repressed by the owner or the creator of them, are still there, just waiting for the next vulnerable moment to return.

But for right now, standing beside him in his kitchen, preparing dinner for their daughters, it feels normal again. It feels right.

And she allows herself to savor this for just a little while longer.

* * *

His mother comes over for dinner, but apparently not to stay. And he doesn't know why, doesn't understand, until he smells the alcohol on her breath when she embraces him.

His mother has never been a problematic drunk, often loosening up after a few drinks, growing tipsy, but never loud or obnoxious. Never an alcoholic but certainly toeing the line more than once over the years.

He wants his mother here, to have her in his life just as consistently as she was before his disappearance. He wants her happy, healthy, but in the meantime, he doesn't want this kind of example around the girls.

Though, Alexis seems to already expect it when her grandmother hugs her, burying her frown in the older woman's shoulder.

He wants to confront his mother about it right then, to pull her aside into his office and tell her to go back to the hotel until she's sobered up-

"My dad's going to help her dry out," Kate murmurs, catching his arm and his intentions in the kitchen before he can say anything. "Alexis and I called him this morning while you were sleeping. He's excited to see you, by the way."

The smile that flickers across her lips is small and fleeting, and Rick scrapes a hand through his hair.

"How long?" is all he has to ask. Kate sighs, crosses her arms over her stomach and casts her gaze to the women setting the table. Lily is busy chattering at Martha's side, oblivious to any change, and for that at least, he's grateful.

"Since she moved to Europe, I think. It - I had Lily to keep me going, Alexis dedicated herself to school, her career path, but your mom… she got lost," Kate explains on another soft sigh. "But she wants to get better. I know she does."

Castle squares his jaw and turns his back on the dining table, glares down at the island and the remnants of green bell peppers and tomatoes left on the cutting board.

"I ruined everyone's life," he mutters, hating himself for it, but Kate huffs her disapproval at his back, drifts in closer to stand at his side. "Seriously, Kate-"

"Because you _chose_ to do this?" she questions incredulously, but he still refuses to look at her, can't yet. "Castle, regardless of what happened to you, _how_ it happened, I know you would never have chosen to leave us. Not like this, not for this long. And no one blames you-"

"Well, maybe you should," he snaps under his breath. "Whatever happened to me was probably my own fault, probably some new Pandora's box I managed to open-"

"Stop it," she growls, finally earning the rise of his gaze, allowing him to witness the fire he's lit in hers. "You've never done anything without good intentions, but whatever reason someone took you, _hurt_ you, it's not your fault. So save the self-pity."

"I'm not-" But she holds up a hand between them, flicks her eyes towards the table, where Lily is watching. Castle shifts, takes a moment to allow the heightened pounding of his heart to settle. "It's _not_ self-pity," he bites out under his breath. "It's fucking anguish over seeing what I've done to everyone I love."

Kate releases a sigh, but grazes her fingers along his hand before dropping them back to her side.

"Don't you get it?" she asks, the fire in her eyes simmering into glowing embers, the hard lines of her features slowly beginning to soften. "You came back."

He averts his eyes to the ceiling at the infuriating threat of tears. He feels Kate brush her knuckles to the small of his back in a gesture of comfort he's missed so much.

"We may be a little damaged, but we're all going to be okay," she promises. "More so than we would've been if you had never come back, so it's worth it, Castle. Having you back is worth… everything."

"Momma, we're hungry," Lily groans from the table.

Castle chokes on a laugh, snags the hand at his back before it can fall away and presses a quick kiss to her knuckles before he can think better of it.

"Come on," he murmurs, nudging her towards the dining area. "I can't have our daughter thinking I don't take dinner seriously."

* * *

Kate isn't surprised when Lily doesn't want to leave later that evening. Though, she does surprise them all by clinging to Castle's side after dinner, curling up against him on the sofa instead of packing up her backpack like she's supposed to, and Kate excuses herself to the study before a potential tantrum can begin.

She makes the call she should have that morning.

"Kate, I was hoping to hear from you," the soothing voice of Doctor Burke greets her, already doing wonders for her nerves. After exchanging pleasantries and easing the door shut, she takes a seat in Castle's office chair, a deep breath, and tells her therapist everything.

She recounts every moment, from the call she received nearly 48 hours ago that led to the knowledge of Castle's shocking return, to the rift and potential end of her marriage. To Lily meeting her father for the first time, her refusal to leave him now - every single detail - until she feels utterly spent.

"I just want to do what's best for my daughter," she finishes on a trembling sigh. She drapes her forearm over her eyes as she tilts back in the leather chair, listening to the calming sound of Burke's contemplative hum.

"I understand your concerns in having too much occur too soon, but from what I've heard - and seen - of Lily Castle, she's quite tough and well-centered emotionally for her age," Burke explains. Kate exhales in quiet relief. She lowers her arm from her eyes, lets it fall to her stomach as she casts her gaze to the window at her side, the city lights glowing through the night sky. "I think the real question here is one I've asked you before."

Her brow furrows, but Burke answers before she can ask.

"Are you ready to accept Castle back into your life like this?"

"Accept him?" she repeats with a frown. "It's not like - he didn't choose to leave me."

"No, and I'm by no means implying that you resent him for something out of his control, but he did leave. It broke your heart, put you through a long process of grieving," Burke recounts.

Kate purses her lips, ignores the way the reminder scrapes at her already raw heart.

Burke continues. "A lot has changed since Castle was here. You had a child, got married, recently applied for the position of captain at the Twelfth. And those were all good things, Kate. What you have to decide now is if you want to adjust those changes to fit into your life with Castle. That is, if a life with him is what you want."

"He was gone for six years," she whispers, drawing her legs up onto the chair, her knees to her chest. "It shouldn't feel so… easy to be around him again. I shouldn't - I'm not the same and neither is he, what if we don't work anymore? What if we're just clinging to what we were? I don't want to put Lily through that."

"Why did you give Tom your ring back so quickly?" Burke inquires, throwing her off guard for a long moment. Kate tucks her hand into the collar of her shirt, gripping the chain around her throat and toying with the ring she still has. "Why not try to work things out?"

"Because… Castle is here," she answers, the first and easiest explanation that comes to mind. "Tom was wonderful, but if Castle never would have left, it never would have happened. Being with anyone else when he's here again feels…"

"Wrong?"

"Unfathomable," she confesses on an exhale. "But we can't just pick up where we left off, even he knows that."

"Good, because that would be impossible," Burke confirms. "It won't be easy, Kate. From what you've told me, Castle has undergone his fair share of trauma, to say the least, and you have too. It's going to take work and time, but if it's what you want, if it's what makes both Lily and you happy, then it will be worth the effort."

Kate closes her eyes, sways slowly in the chair and curls her fist around the ring at her sternum.

"This is the first time in the last six years that things feel right again," she admits in a whisper. "Not just okay or acceptable, but… like they should."

"Then, in answer to your original question, my personal opinion is that as long as you and Lily are comfortable with it, you should stay at the loft," Burke states, that reassuring tenor of confidence in his voice. "At least until Lily's developing separation anxiety subsides and she can trust in the fact that Castle won't disappear again."

Kate nods to herself. "Do you think a week would be an adequate start?"

"Do you?" Burke parrots and she huffs, hates when he does that.

"For now," she concedes on a grumble. She can practically hear that pleased smile that often spreads across his lips when a session is successful.

"It sounds like you know what to do," Burke appraises, waiting a beat. "Would you like me to squeeze you in for an appointment this week?"

"That'd probably be a good idea," Kate concedes, unfolding her legs from the chair. "And… will you let me know if you have any extra openings?"

There's a pause of curiosity before he figures it out. "I could certainly squeeze Castle in as well if he thinks therapy would benefit him."

"After what he's been through, what I've seen anyway, I want to let him know the option is there," she murmurs, standing from the chair. She remains behind Castle's desk, brushing her fingers along the picture frames. "Especially if more memories start to come back."

"I'll keep an open spot for him if he opts for a session," Burke assures her.

Kate sighs in gratitude, dusts her fingertips over the ultrasound of Lily that somehow made it from the fridge to his desk.

"Thank you."

"Anytime, Kate. Truly, I hope this all works out, but you know how to reach me if you need anything at all."

She thanks Doctor Burke once more, bids him a good night, and emerges from Castle's office to find Lily dozing against his side. Castle's arm is draped over her shoulders and it makes Kate's heart kick hard, forces her to stall and lean against the doorframe.

"Everything okay?" he asks quietly.

She hesitates for a second before she nods, ensures her heart won't send her to her knees as she pushes off the wall to enter the living room.

"Burke thinks that, for Lily's sake, it might be a good idea to stick around for a little while," she explains, watching the excitement flicker in his eyes despite his best attempts to blink it away. "So, if it's okay, I was thinking we could stay for the week."

"You never have to ask my permission," he answers without missing a beat, but his words are solemn, earnest. "This is just as much your home, hers, as it is mine."

Her lips threaten to twitch in the corners and she nods her acceptance, drifts in towards the two of them. "Well, Lily isn't going to leave your side and I need to pack our stuff. Come with us?"

"Sure," Castle accepts, glancing down to the little girl sleeping against his side. "Does she have a bedtime?"

"Eight on school nights, nine on weekends, but I've been catching her with a flashlight and a book lately when I go to check on her," Kate chuckles, rolling her eyes even as a proud grin splits Castle's lips open.

"Better hurry then, bedtime is approaching," he murmurs, shifting to wake Lily with that pleased smile still in place. Because, of course, he's thrilled to have another daughter who's willing to break the rules for a good book.

Lily's eyes peel open at the gentle nudge of Castle's hand on her shoulder. Kate holds her breath, waits for the reaction, but Lily only stares up at him for a moment before her eyes stray to find her mother.

"Do we have to leave, Momma?" she yawns, her head still resting against Castle's ribcage.

But Kate's already shaking her head, dispelling the prepared pleading from her eyes and watching Lily's smile bloom.

"No, Peanut," she sighs, exhausted but relieved to see her daughter happy, to see the echoing smile on Castle's lips. "We're staying."


	9. Chapter 9

Kate's apartment isn't necessarily different, but it definitely isn't how he remembers it either.

Lily has certainly put her mark on the place, her artwork covering the fridge, a few of her toys littering the living room couch and floor, children's books mingling with the novels on Kate's bookshelves - which still feature all of his works; he checks, a smug smile stretching across his lips before Kate catches him with a narrowed look.

But Lily isn't the only person who has been living here with her. While Kate is out of sight helping Lily pack, he wanders the once familiar second home and finds traces of Tom.

A man's watch on the coffee table, a razor in the bathroom, his smiling face in the few family photos scattered across the space. It grates him. Not just the physical reminders of another man in her life, but the lack of them too. The presence as well as the absence. The toothbrush that's missing from the holder, the empty spaces on the shelves where his things must have gone, the silver band Kate has yet to return to her ring finger and he can't seem to find anywhere in the apartment.

He wants to ask what happened so badly it's like a living beast he has to tame, bite back from clawing its way out of his mouth. But whatever _they_ are still feels too new, too fragile, and he can't afford to drive her away, not now.

Doesn't stop his blood from boiling and his stomach from hollowing out over the physical evidence of Kate being with another man, of Lily practically being raised by him for the last few years. So much time and so many moments Rick will never be able to reclaim, experience, make up for.

"If you're done snooping, Lily's dying to show you her room," Kate muses from behind him, jerking his attention away from the framed photo next to her computer.

"The old guest room?" he assumes, clearing his throat and schooling his features before he turns around to face her. "And I wasn't snooping, I was just… admiring."

Kate shoots him a disbelieving glare, but he merely strides past her, towards the opposite end of the apartment where Lily's open bedroom door beckons.

He steps inside, scanning his eyes along the expanse of the redecorated room until they land on Lily sitting inside the slim closet.

"Wow, nice," he compliments, earning the quick rise of her attention.

Lily beams up at him and hastily tucks her stuffed elephant into her bag; the purple backpack from earlier has been exchanged for a larger suitcase that Kate has already folded a week's worth of clothing into.

"Momma and Aunt Lanie painted it with me last summer," Lily explains, standing from the floor. She abandons her suitcase to approach him in the doorway, grabbing his hand to draw him along after her for the grand tour of the small room. "I wanted it to look like an enchanted forest."

Castle roams his eyes along the walls, over the printed trees stretching from the hardwood floors, up the dark purple walls to the ceiling. Birds are perched on their branches, white flowers - lilies - drawn near the trunks and along certain limbs, and stars painted amidst the leaves.

"Aunt Lanie and I did the flowers, but Mom did _all_ the stars."

Castle extends his arm upwards to dust his fingers to one of those carefully crafted, golden stars, all varying sizes, all coated in a clear layer of glitter.

"This must have taken a long time," he murmurs and Lily hums her confirmation.

"Yeah, but Mom spent all of her free time helping me, especially on her days off from work. Oh!" Lily lets go of his hand to skip towards the doorway. "Watch this."

She flips off the overhead light, and he knows what to expect before she reaches for another switch, saw the cords of twinkle lights Alexis used to adore as a kid pinned to the walls and strung across the ceiling. But it doesn't steal from the sense of magic that spills through the room when Lily turns them on.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Lily breathes and he glances back to see his little girl's face illuminated by the soft glow of gold twinkling through the room. Her eyes are a rich amber like Kate's, her smile possessing that same wondrous quality his fiancee's once did in the moments he managed to amaze her with little things. The repair of her father's watch, a dedication in his novel, seashells on the wall, a wedding ring in the park.

"Most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he confirms.

* * *

The majority of Tom's clothing is gone from the closet, his belongings cleared out of the nightstand. Her abandoned ring is no longer there to glare up at her, and Kate packs her bag with a heart that feels too heavy for all she's gained this week.

There's a small part of her that wants to call him, tell him to come back, that they can work things out - the part of her that wants to feel secure in where she stands. The part of her that wants things to feel familiar again, easier. But then she hears Castle's voice in the other room, Lily's laughter, and the desire to listen to that combination every day for the rest of her life wins out with ease.

She slings the duffel bag over her shoulder and moves into the bathroom, starts plucking her toiletries from the shower and cabinets.

"Hey Kate," Castle calls minutes later, knocking on the open door of her bedroom before poking his head inside. "Almost ready?"

"Yeah," she murmurs, switching off the light in the en suite once she's sure she has everything. But when she returns to her room, Castle is already inside, tugging open the top drawer of a bureau.

"Again with the snooping," she huffs and he has the decency to look sheepish, but his eyes are glued to the inside of the drawer he's pulled open.

A small panic swirls through her chest. She knows why he chose _that_ drawer now.

"My drawer," he mumbles, dipping his hand inside, shock blooming through his gaze when he encounters the contents she has hidden away near the back.

"Castle-"

But he's already pulling things out, putting his hands all over everything like he has been from the moment she met him, and she drops the duffel bag, moves to stop him, beg him to stop.

"Our shells," he breathes, withdrawing the pouch of seashells from their first trip to the Hamptons together. The contenders that hadn't made the beautiful collection he pieced together into artwork on what was once their bedroom wall. "Oh, and that's where that picture of us from my desk went, I was looking everywhere for it."

"Rick," she presses, crossing the room to grab his hand before he finds-

He sets down the shells and the engagement photo she stole from its frame when she moved out of the loft, slipping the newspaper clippings out instead.

He stares down at them with parted lips and wide eyes. The pieces of his murder board that she took down only two years ago, mostly for Tom's benefit.

Not that it mattered. She still has all of the information in a file at the precinct, tucked away in the bottom drawer of her desk.

"Kate," he whispers, spreading the articles out amidst his fingers.

She's sure he's able to read her markings on each piece, the notes scribbled along the sides in her handwriting, only a glimpse of proof into her obsession.

"Please," she gets out, covering his hands and easing the clippings from his fingers. "I can't - I had to keep them, just in case."

"There must be at least twenty articles here," he states numbly, his gaze still glued to the newspaper even as she neatly stacks them together in her own hands.

There are twenty-three, but she purses her lips together, brushes her thumb over the photo of him staring up at her.

"It was a big deal," is all she says, glancing back to him, just in time to see him reaching back into the damn drawer. "Castle, come on. There aren't any more-"

He pauses with his brows knit together at what his fingers encounter next. It's only then that she remembers what she shoved into the very back of the drawer.

"My shirt?" he murmurs, pulling out the olive green button down, unfolding it, and causing the black lace tucked away with it to flutter to his feet. He bends to retrieve it before she can and Kate closes her eyes, hears the catch in his breath. "And - lingerie. You wore this for me when-"

"Yeah," she cuts him off, opening her eyes with resolution.

She reaches for the items on the bureau's surface, for the shirt in his hand, but he holds the black negligee out of her reach.

"You gave me this drawer for our first Valentine's Day and you kept it as my drawer all this time," he summarizes, the awe in his voice subtle but present. "Everything in here is mine."

She rolls her eyes, snags for the lingerie again, but he crushes it in his fist.

"This too."

"You're being an ass-"

"No, I'm being grateful," he corrects, tucking the black lace into his inside jacket pocket, and her nostrils flare. "Grateful you never wore it for anyone else."

She resists the urge to slap him, shoves at his chest instead, something hot and painful tearing open inside her chest, and Castle looks down at her in surprise.

"Of course I didn't," she hisses, her heart seared. And maybe it's because it hurts so much to remember their physical connection, how deeply she can love him with her body alone, how she was once able to say things through dance of limbs and seal of skins that she could never express with words, but she struggles to rein it in. "How could you even think… if I'd had any idea you were alive-"

She blinks away the irrational burn of tears, gives up on trying to explain it, and strides past him. She needs a moment to collect herself, to not remember how during her first time with Tom, it was Castle's name she breathed out in release.

"Kate," he calls after her. His fingers curl around her arm, his grip spinning her around to face him. The momentum nearly slams her against his chest, but Castle steadies her with hands to her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. She shakes her head, drops it forward to his collarbone.

His breath stutters beneath her touch, her proximity, but she doesn't pull back.

Kate curls into him, closes her eyes, and buries her face against his neck. It's been so long, too long, since he's held her, their moment in the hospital too rushed and wrapped in confusion.

She's been trying not to push, to give him - and herself - time to adjust, but she's missed the sense of safety that comes with having him so close, the comfort of having his heart beneath her ear.

Castle's hands are hesitant, but they splay at her shoulder blades while his cheek lowers to her temple, the exhale of his breath feathering along her ear.

"Sorry," he murmurs again, rubbing slow circles over her spine. "I am an ass, I'm sorry."

Her lips quirk, but she doesn't want an apology, doesn't want him feeling guilty for something out of his control.

"Don't be." She sucks in a breath, regrets it as the aroma of his scent fills her lungs, and unfurls her arms from between them, grips his hips.

"I'll put it back," he promises, his lips brushing her hair. "I'll go right now-"

"No," she mumbles around a swallow, pulling back from his tentative embrace. "Keep it."

His eyes flare wide, electric blue, and she touches her fingers to his chin, grazing the stubble along his jaw.

"It was only ever for you," she confirms, dropping her hand as she hears the close of Lily's bedroom door.

She diverts her eyes from his gaze, from the longing blooming bright in his irises, and takes a step back at the approach of small footsteps.

"Momma?" Lily is standing at her side, staring up at Kate with a knit brow. "Are you okay?"

"Of course," Kate murmurs, attempting to reassure Lily with a lift of her lips, the comb of her fingers through her daughter's hair. It doesn't wholly convince her, but it's enough for Lily to accept her mother's denial. "Do you have everything?"

"All my clothes, my art supplies, my school stuff, and my elephant," Lily lists with a nod of confirmation.

"Good girl," Kate praises with a grin. "I'm just going to grab my bag and we're ready to-"

"Wait!" Lily gasps. "I forgot something!"

She races back to her room and Castle nudges her hip once their daughter is out of sight, her bag already waiting in his grasp.

"Thank you," she murmurs, moving to take it from him, but he slings it over his shoulder.

"I'll take it down to the town car, wait for you there-"

"It doesn't have to be awkward, Rick," she sighs, risking a glance at his face to see the sullen expression, the guilt claiming his features. He has nothing to feel guilty for. "We can… talk about this kind of stuff, it's just going to take some time."

He nods his acceptance without hesitation. "I can wait."

An unbidden smile threatens to stretch across her mouth, but she purses her lips. "I know."

"Got it," Lily breathes, rushing back out of her room to join them in the middle of the apartment. She holds up a notebook to Castle. "Here."

"More drawings?" he asks with a smile. Kate kind of loves him for that, for already showing so much interest in what Lily's most passionate about, but their daughter is shaking her head.

"No, that's an extra sketchbook of mine. I haven't used it yet so I thought you could," Lily explains, pushing it into his hands. "So you can draw your dreams and maybe find your memories."

Castle's fingers curl around the black spiral-bound pad, one of Kate's old detective notebooks she recycled for Lily's artwork collection. He quickly covers his surprise with another smile for Lily, this one a little strained, taut with emotion that laces along his lips and spreads to his eyes.

"Thank you. I'll keep it on my bedside table tonight so I can reach for it right away in the morning."

And Lily looks so pleased by that alone, that Kate reaches for his arm while their daughter is busy adjusting her suitcase, and she squeezes his bicep with gratitude.

"Ready now?" Kate asks, withdrawing her keys from her pocket.

"Yep." Lily nods and starts for the door with her suitcase trailing after her, both parents close behind.

"Are you sure?" Castle murmurs. Lily is opening the front door to wait in the hall for Kate to lock up. "I mean - are you sure you'll be okay with this? I want to give you the space you need, Kate. I don't want you to think I-"

Kate pauses with her key in the door and shakes her head.

"I don't want space, I don't want to give _you_ space. That's - god, that's the last thing I want after the last six years," she whispers, biting down on her bottom lip and closing the door to her apartment. "We both just need some time, Castle, to take things slowly, find a solid ground. That's all. But it doesn't mean I want - I don't want to be away from you, don't need any more space, so yeah, I'm sure."

She reaches for Lily's hand as they walk down the hallway, lets her daughter press the call button for the elevator. The girl swings their clasped palms back and forth while they wait, and Kate glances to Castle for his response.

"Solid ground sounds good," he concedes.

She grazes her knuckles along the back of his hand, but doesn't twine their fingers yet.

She knows he is still lost between an old reality and the new, she has just ended things with Tom; time is a _good_ thing.

Not that the logic stops her fingers from twitching with the urge to hold his hand.


	10. Chapter 10

In the beginning of Kate and Lily's week long stay at the loft, both Alexis and Kate are hesitant to leave him alone, both on the verge of taking the entire week off from their respective jobs. But he already feels like a burden enough as it is, has disrupted their lives enough in the last six years to last a lifetime; he isn't going to ruin their careers too.

He convinces Alexis first.

He's already awake after another night of strange dreams he can barely remember, waiting for her with a cup of coffee when she comes downstairs dressed in a pantsuit and uncertainty at six a.m.

"I can take another few days," she reasons, her fingers clenching around the messenger bag strapped across her chest. But he can tell she wants to go, that she's tackled this job like she has everything else in her life, with passion and loyalty.

His daughter is making a difference, helping families like theirs, and who is he to keep her from that?

Rick practically pushes her to the door.

"I'll be fine, Pumpkin." He gives her a kiss on the head and promises her that he'll be okay, that he won't leave the loft alone, won't disappear again. "I'll be here when you get back."

She stares up at him, looking so grown up with her short hair and fitted blazer, yet still so young in her struggle to leave him. So Castle wraps his arms around her, hugs her tights against his chest and props his chin atop her head.

Alexis huddles into him, presses her cheek to his shoulder, and sighs. In that moment, it's like she's the teenager he feels he just left, not yet so mature and marred by his disappearance and all that has come with it.

"I'll see you after work, Dad," she decides, pulling back from his embrace with a soft smile.

He squeezes her shoulders, letting her step back to pull open the front door. He shoots her an encouraging smile as she drifts into the hall, and reluctant as she is, it's enough to send her on her way.

Kate is a lot harder to sway, which Alexis probably knew all along.

She's joining him in the kitchen minutes after Alexis's departure, a knowing look already etched into her features. But she says nothing, lets him make her coffee like he used to while she prepares what he's learning is Lily's usual breakfast of cereal and fruit.

He learns that morning that their daughter isn't as much of an early riser like Alexis was as a child. Accompanying Kate upstairs just before seven, he watches with some amusement at the effort Kate puts forth to wake her.

"See, this is why you have a bedtime," she huffs, pulling back the covers despite Lily's whine of disapproval. "Come on, Peanut. You want to be late for school?"

She does possess the same enthusiasm for learning that Alexis always did, the same excitement for school every morning. The mention of it has her rubbing at her eyes, yawning away the remnants of sleep while she crawls out of bed.

After she's gone to the bathroom and changed into her school clothes, Lily proves to be her usual chatty self. She sits at the bar, her legs swinging from the stool while she talks to him over breakfast, telling him all about the book they're reading in class and how impatient she is to get to the next chapter because she reads faster than everyone else.

He listens intently, the pride simmering through his chest, and wonders if Alexis has already donated all of her old childhood favorites to her younger sister, or if Lily has yet to discover magical worlds of Narnia and Hogwarts. He stores away the reminder to ask later.

Once her cereal bowl is empty and she's sipping the last of the orange juice from her glass, Lily looks to him with hopeful eyes. "Can you come with us to drop me off?"

He glances to Kate, rinsing dishes in the sink. But she merely arches an eyebrow, leaving the decision up to him.

At least it's an easy one to make.

"Sure," he smiles, his heart swelling when Lily beams in approval.

He may not necessarily feel like a real dad to her yet, still needing the chance to put in the time, but Lily wants him to come with her and Kate wherever they go, wants his company. And it means everything to him.

The drive to Lily's school in Tribeca is brief. Kate drives through traffic with the same skill he remembers and they arrive in front of the elementary school with plenty of time to spare. Apparently Lily likes to be early, since she wastes no time unbuckling herself from the car seat.

"You're sure you have everything?" Kate asks out of what sounds like habit.

"Yep!" Lily slips her arms through her backpack and stretches from the backseat to press a kiss to Kate's cheek. He perks up with surprise when she shows him the same courtesy, pecking a quick kiss to his as well.

"You promise you'll still be here when I come back?" she questions seriously, narrowing her gaze on him in a move he swears she picked up from Kate's interrogation tactics.

Castle meets his daughter's seeking brown eyes with a sincerity he hopes she'll be able to read.

"I promise."

Lily studies him for a moment before she finally nods in approval. "Okay, see you both after school. Love you!"

"Love you too," Kate replies with ease while Lily opens the car door, glancing to Castle expectantly, but he doesn't realize the words are for him as well.

"Love you too," he rushes out before Lily can slam the door closed and skip off to school, waving to them as she blends into the congregation of kids.

They watch for a long moment, their daughter's vibrant purple backpack like a beacon amidst the crowd. Once she disappears with a cluster of her classmates through the school's front doors, he feels Kate's eyes fall on him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just… it feels wrong to leave her here," he admits, spreading his hands out atop his jean clad thighs. When he tears his gaze away from the elementary school, he sees he's earned the inquisitive tilt of her head. "I mean, I just found her. Or well, she found me. And I - it's like her first day of school."

He catches the flicker of realization in her eyes as Kate nods her understanding. She orientates her body towards him in the small space of the front seat while they're still parked, has that look on her face he recognizes from the times she's told him pieces of her past. Like she's about to share a secret with him.

"On her very first day of preschool, I took the entire day off," she reveals. "I parked my cruiser not far from the playground, stayed for the few hours until it was time to go in and pick her up."

His heart swells, mourns, aching with the longing to go back in time. To be sitting in the car beside her then like he is now.

The smile laces along the edges of her lips, soft and reminiscent. "I did the same thing when she started kindergarten, but cut it down to just the morning for this year."

"And you made fun of me for hiding in the bushes on Alexis's first day," he huffs, relishing the gentle sound of her laughter.

"You want to spend the day hiding in the bushes, Castle?" she teases, but he has a feeling that if he asked her to, she would find a better place to park and camp out here with him.

He sighs, tempted, but shakes his head. "It's just a few hours until it'll be time to pick her up, right?"

She reaches across the space between them to curve a palm over his knee - just a show of sympathy, he reminds himself, even as her thumb strokes his patella - and offers him a gentle lift of her lips.

"Right. And she'll be thrilled when we're both here waiting for her."

He glances back to the school, probably already in session by now, and thinks about the little girl inside, her prevailing attachment to him. "Yeah?"

Kate squeezes his knee. "I'm sure you've noticed, but Lily is already extremely comfortable around you. If she wasn't, trust me, you'd know."

"She is quite vocal," he concedes, internally delighted when Kate's smile grows, pride surfacing in her gaze.

"Exactly. So you're doing fine, just keep letting her lead," she shrugs, withdrawing her hand and readjusting in her seat. She shifts the cruiser into 'drive' and he drops his hand to his knee, covers the spot where the permeating warmth of her palm lingers, trying to trap it there.

Castle sits back in the passenger seat, relaxes a little, but can't help glancing back to Kate as she pulls into morning traffic.

"You really think that 'love you' was for me too?" he asks quietly, watching as the corner of her mouth curls slight and lovely.

"Yes," she murmurs. "She would have added 'Momma' to the end if it wasn't."

The soft thrill of her confirmation flutters through his chest and Castle smiles, lets this moment of joy consume his entire being, relishing in the knowledge of his daughter loving him.

Despite his absence in her life.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Castle inquires once they return to SoHo after dropping Lily off at school.

"Back to the loft?" she answers with a confused crease tugging down her brow when he huffs in what sounds like disappointment. "Where did you _think_ we were going?"

"The precinct?" he mumbles, sliding hopeful eyes towards her still, but she shoots an incredulous glance his way.

"Castle, I took the week off."

"The _entire_ week? Beckett, you can't do that. We've talked about this, the city needs you. You're like Batman," he reminds her, but she merely rolls her eyes at the comparison. "And I want to go back to the Twelfth too. It… hasn't changed too much, has it?"

"No," she assures him, easing her foot onto the brake as the traffic light turns red. "Luckily, that's one thing that never seems to change too much."

Beside her, his chest expands with visible relief.

"I was thinking that we could use this time to figure some things out," she adds, flexing her fingers around the steering wheel. They have six years' worth of things to figure out and has no idea where to even start.

"Oh, yeah, of course." He nods, but still gazes over at her with pursed lips and imploring eyes. "Can we at least go for a visit sometime soon?"

"Sure," she gives in on a sigh, pressing down on the gas pedal, ignoring the spread of Castle's grin in victory. "But for now, we're going back to the loft."

"What if we stayed out for just a little while longer?" he counters, his brow quirking with the suggestion. "It's a nice morning and we could just go for a walk."

Kate gnaws on her bottom lip, knowing in her gut that it's a bad idea. She obviously doesn't know where he was kept, how much human interaction he was allowed, but he's spent so little time outside the safety of the loft, the hospital, that she's afraid to risk doing anything detrimental to his recovery.

Though… he seems okay now, in the car with her and the buzzing life of the city around them. He didn't show any signs of panic last night during the brief drive to her apartment, and Alexis never reported any issues on his transfer from the hospital to the loft either. Maybe exposure to the outside world could be good for him, healthy, what he needs.

It's what he wants at least and she can already give him so little of that.

All she really wants is to see that hopeful half smile on his lips blossom into something full and beautiful. The kind of smile she has so dearly missed and still not seen.

"Okay," she decides as the loft comes into view, parking her car along the sidewalk and unbuckling her seatbelt. "We can walk around for a bit, maybe go to the nearest park."

The _if you can handle it_ remains unsaid between them, but he doesn't seem to mind.

He's too busy doing his best to contain his enthusiasm, to keep his expression neutral and calm. But his eyes never fail to give him away to her, clear and blue like the brightening morning sky above, rays of sunlight shimmering through his irises. She smiles at him despite herself.

"What?" he chuckles, some of that excitement swirling with curiosity in his gaze. Kate shakes her head, but doesn't try to wipe the smile from her lips.

"Nothing, I've just… missed looking at you," she confesses gracelessly, preparing for the onslaught of gloating. But it's not delight or arrogance that overpowers the question in his gaze.

Castle stares back at her for a long moment, a hint of wonder there, and curls his hand into a loose fist atop his thigh. An action she recognizes from times he's needed to refrain from touching her.

Her heart sinks.

"I'd give anything to have the last six years back," he murmurs, reading her mind without trying. "To have been able to spend them like this, seeing you."

Shit, she didn't expect him to reel her heart up into her throat and damn near make her cry. But she takes a deep breath through her nose, keeps any potential tears at bay, and hooks her fingers around the handle of the door.

"Then just never leave my sight again."

* * *

Initially, Castle sticks close to her on the sidewalk out of habit, and then out of necessity, trying to avoid the flow of pedestrians. But soon it's more than that and he's doing his best not to wince at the cacophony of noises coming from every direction.

He's been outside since his return; he hardly noticed the surrounding sights and sounds on the ride home when he was released from the hospital. No, he was calm and unbothered while settled inside the tinted vehicle with his mother and daughters. Similar to how the blanket of darkness and the distraction of Kate and Lily held all of his attention last night, again this morning on the drive to school.

He's been fine each time. No bubbling sense of panic, no uncomfortable flutter in his chest or ringing in his ears or through his skull. But now, outside on the streets in the sea of bodies, exposed to the unmuted screams of sound coming all around, he feels as if he's on the verge of short-circuiting.

"Castle?" Kate's voice breaches the whirlwind of sensory overload. Her arm eases through his and tugs him gently off to the side, leading him only a few steps farther before drawing him out of the human traffic. When he risks a glance, he sees they're tucked into an alley between a soul-cycling center and a coffee shop. "Hey, Castle, look at me."

He huddles against the building's side, turning his back to the sidewalks and feeling Kate circling around to stand in front of him. Her hands drape at his biceps, but he can't tear his eyes away from his shoes, the dirty ground beneath.

"Rick," she says, pushing in closer. The toes of her ballet flats appear between his, the heat of her body radiating warmth that helps with the hollow ache pulsing through his chest. "It's okay, we're going to go home."

"I can't," he chokes out, the two simple syllables so tangled, he isn't sure if she's able to make them out or not. "I can't do this, Kate." And he doesn't even understand _why_ , what's wrong, only that it's too much, that he can't think. He can barely even focus on her. "I can't do it-"

"Shh, hey, yes you can," she murmurs, one of her hands descending to the side of his throat. Her fingers layer over his frenzied pulse point, her thumb brushing the taut skin below his jaw. "It's just a short walk back to the car, a couple of minutes tops. You're going to make it back with me so we can go home."

He tries to manage a sound of approval, but it just comes out as another keening noise that has Kate lifting her other hand to cradle his cheek.

"Castle, listen to me," she whispers. He jerkily lifts his hands to her waist, clutches the sides of her jacket so hard his fingers ache. "You're the strongest person I know. You always have been and I'm so grateful for it."

"Not," he rasps out, because there's no way that's true. But Kate is insistent, squeezes lightly at his neck.

"Yes, you are. How many times have you done the unthinkable to save my life?" she demands, her voice firm yet somehow soft against his overworked senses. "You helped me solve my mom's murder, you saved Alexis when she was kidnapped and taken to Paris, you've survived the last six years."

He squeezes his eyes shut at the onslaught of memories kept, the throb of those still trying to reemerge. But all he can ever see when anyone mentions his disappearance is a dark room, a dim light, the cold seeping into his skin any time he envisions the space.

Not much of a lead, hardly a memory at all.

"That's how you made it, Castle," she breathes, migrating her hands to the back of his skull, threading her fingers through his hair and scratching soothingly at his scalp, cradling his head. Making him feel safe. "How you came back to me."

He attempts a shallow breath, forces his eyes open and upwards, forces himself to look at her. Kate cups his face in her hands, stares back at him.

And then her gaze drifts down to his mouth.

And for a split second, his damn near panic attack, the trauma he's having a hard time controlling, doesn't even matter, because all he can think is that Kate Beckett is about to kiss him.

But then her eyes are sliding back to his, her hands slipping down to his chest. One of her palms splays over his heart, and she doesn't kiss him, but she leans in to touch her forehead to his, offering them both a moment of reprieve. The peace the simple gesture brings him in the midst of his barely subsided madness is almost just as good.

Almost.

* * *

Kate tells him to pick out a movie when they return to the loft, hoping he'll find something that will take his mind off of what had happened on the sidewalk, eliminate the slump in his shoulders and the frown carved into his lips. Because she doesn't think she can bear the sullen look on his face, the shame in his eyes, for much longer.

She gives him excess time, acting on the idea of making popcorn, adding M&M's to the bowl, just the way he's always liked. But when he fails to emerge from his office minutes later, she abandons the snack on the kitchen counter.

"Castle?" she calls from the living room.

The silence has panic forming in her chest, spreading like a virus through her system in seconds. The worst case scenarios swirl through her mind in the few steps it takes to reach the wall of books - another kidnapping, a hostage situation, a medical emergency, all of it causing her heart to beat too hard against her ribs. And it's silly, paranoid, but she _just_ got him back and she refuses to lose him again.

Her thoughts of paranoia come to a halt, though, when she finds him sitting in his office chair. He's hunched over his desk, his head in his hands and the notebook Lily gave him last night open in front of him.

Kate frowns and ventures closer, her bare feet silent on the hardwood, and then the rug that surrounds his desk. She pauses once she's beside him, peering over his shoulder without alerting him and scanning her eyes over the notebook, the first page almost filled.

A timeline, laid out in the same fashion she would organize a homicide on the murderboard. It starts on the day of their wedding, spanning through six years of empty space, to the present date. Notes in his blocky handwriting stretch from the top of the page to the bottom - words, sentence fragments, bits of his memory, all crammed around it.

 _Eggs - no other food. Water. Keeping me healthy, keeping me alive. What purpose?_

 _Beatings to the back, doctor said it scarred like either rope or a cord, not a typical whip. Latest scars are a few months old. Why did he stop? Who is he?_

 _Setting is dark, cold, a cave? Single light, red dot in the corner, cot to the side. Walls are grey, floors concrete. Where was the door? How did I escape?_

Kate sucks in a quiet breath as her mind tries to picture the place he's describing, the flashes of memory he's jotted down, and the questions that are currently haunting them both.

"Rick," she murmurs, curving her palm over the rounded edge of his shoulder. She snags her bottom lip with her teeth when his flesh ripples beneath her touch, his entire body shuddering and his hand quickly moving to splay over the page.

"Sorry," he rasps, burying his fingers in his hair and sitting up straighter. "I was trying to - I just want to understand."

"Understand?" she echoes, migrating her hand to his nape where all of his tension usually gathers, feeling the raised edge of a scar beneath the pads of her fingers.

"Why I freaked out on the street," he grumbles, lowering his other hand from his head and closing the notebook. "What's wrong with me and what else might make me have a meltdown like a crazy person."

Her eyebrows arch and she withdraws her hand.

"Like me, you mean?" His eyes snap up to her, confusion tugging down his brow. "You think you're the only one here who's had a meltdown, Castle?"

"What? No, Kate, I didn't mean-"

"Did you think I was crazy whenever my PTSD flared up?"

He shakes his head and pushes up from the desk. "No, no, I'm sorry - I just... can't stand not knowing. Having this chunk of my life missing, the dreams, freaking out over things I don't _understand_."

"You were probably isolated," she points out while he paces away from her to walk the length of the room. "Probably kept somewhere secluded and quiet with your captor as your only source of human interaction. Even if you don't remember right now, parts of your mind still do, your body. It's just reacting out of instinct."

Her logic doesn't seem to matter in that moment, the anguish written across his face only etching itself deeper into the lines of his skin.

"Castle, we'll figure this out. We'll find a way to get your memories back," she insists, but he scoffs, bitter and hollow in response. So unlike him, it almost surprises her.

"Come on, Kate. You know as well as I do that there's no way to guarantee that," he mutters, directing his gaze towards the window, glaring into the sunlight.

"But look at you, you've already managed to dream, to remember a few flashes, and it's only been a couple of days since they found you," she objects, crossing the room after him. "They're still there, Castle. You just suppressed-"

"And what does that tell you?" he snaps, spinning to face her. All of that little boy excitement from their morning with Lily, the hope, the glimmer of joy, is gone. An aching mixture of exhaustion and that same shame from earlier is all that remains, burning bright and painful in his eyes. "People suppress stuff they don't _want_ to remember, usually because it's so painful or traumatic that they can't deal with it. So what happens if these memories do come back?"

She purses her lips at the question, the answer on her tongue, but she can see that he isn't done yet.

"I'm going to be so damaged - you don't need this, Kate. Neither does Alexis or Lily."

"Damaged?" she repeats in disbelief, cornering him against the window. "And you think I'm not? That I wasn't? Do you not remember all the time you spent waiting for me after I was shot?"

"That's different," he mumbles, his eyes involuntarily flickering to her chest, where her scar has healed, but still remains in reminder.

"The circumstances are, but ultimately, no, it isn't," she growls, snagging his shirt, when he tries to move past her. "You loved me," she persists, gaining the reluctant glance of his attention even as he still tries to break free of her hold. "You loved me despite my damage, despite the PTSD, the wall, the nightmares that would wake us both up in the middle of the night-"

"Kate," he moans, covering his face with his hands. She doesn't even realize her eyes are beginning to sting until he's going blurry in front of her and her cheeks are wet. "You have a life, a daughter, a husband. You had something good and stable, and I - you can't just throw that away for me."

So many words, memories of her own from the last six years, things she's been dying to say to him, race through her mind. There's so much she wants to say, but all she can do is shake her head at the absurdity of it all, the idea of a life without him.

"But I love you."

His hand drops from his eyes, soaked in agony and frustration, and he stares at her with desire and desolation battling in his gaze.

Kate unfurls her fingers at his side, over the recent bullet wound he sustained, touches her other hand to his cheek. The overgrown stubble abrades her palm, but she cradles his jaw, strokes her thumb to the edge of his devastating frown.

"My life… without you, it's not complete. It's not right, Castle," she murmurs, her voice nearly breaking over his name. "How could you think you don't belong in it? That I could ever be with someone else when I will never get over you?"

He slumps back against the wall, so defeated and worn, and this is new territory for her, witnessing him beaten down and broken. It isn't him. Castle is an optimist, always ready to tackle a problem, fix it in whatever way he knows how, not succumb to it. Trauma changes things, people, but she's determined not to let it change him. Not completely.

Kate follows the sink of his body, uses their height difference to drop her head to his chest. It only takes a moment for his arms to wrap around her, for his lips to press against her hair. She closes her eyes, listens to his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing, reminds herself that it's all real.

"I love you too," he gets out, one of his broad palms cradling the back of her skull. "Only thing I'm sure of anymore."


	11. Chapter 11

Castle is wary to accompany them on the drive to school the next morning, tense at her side as they get into the car. Kate bites her lip as she watches him, hoping to avoid a repeat of yesterday, but he's fine in the car. Lily's consistent chattering keeps him distracted throughout the entire drive, her hand unmoving on his leg seems to help too, and minutes later, their daughter disembarks from the backseat with an 'I love you' tossed over her shoulder, just like yesterday and all without incident.

"I think we should try something else," she says while they watch Lily skip to the entrance.

He waits until their daughter has disappeared inside the building to look back at her in question.

"You're jumpy," she explains before he can ask, squeezing his knee when his eyes drop to his lap. She isn't trying to shame him, to revive leftover frustrations from yesterday, but she wants him to be okay. Not on the verge of a panic attack every time they step outside. "And if you keep doing this to yourself, you're just going to be on edge all the time, risk getting triggered again."

"I know," he sighs, dropping his head back against the seat. "But I can't just... do nothing."

Kate nods, pursing her lips and withdrawing her hand from his knee to adjust the gearshift, pull back onto the street. His fingers twitch at the loss.

"What if you just made the drive with me to drop off Lily every other day?" she suggests, dividing her attention between him and the road. "I know you want to spend time with her and she wants to spend time with you, but there are other ways to do that without overwhelming yourself."

"Other ways?" he inquires, sitting up a little straighter. He looks hopeful when she spares a glance at him from the corner of her eye, some of that disappointment disappearing from his face. But his hope is quickly replaced by confusion. "Kate, you just passed the loft."

"I know," she murmurs, keeping her gaze straight ahead until they reach the park only a few extra minutes from the loft.

She can practically feel the tension returning to his frame as she cuts the engine near the small park's entrance, unbuckles her seatbelt. Kate takes a deep breath, isn't sure this will work, if he'll be willing to try today, but she knows he will at least hear what she has to say.

"I looked up parks in the area last night," she reveals, feeling his eyes fall back to her. "All of the reviews for this place say that it's pretty quiet, never too busy, especially in the mornings. And since it's so close to the loft, I thought we could try it out, if you're feeling up to it."

He doesn't say anything and Kate traps her bottom lip between her teeth, wonders if this wasn't the best idea after all. It's too soon and after yesterday, she should have known better than to-

"You found a park for us to take walks in?" he asks softly.

When she returns her gaze to him, he's staring back at her with that lovely look of wonder shining bright and cerulean in his eyes, as if she's done something extraordinary for him.

"I just thought you needed somewhere better than a busy sidewalk." Kate shrugs, looking away before she can risk touching her lips to that awed smile. She doesn't deserve it. So she curls her fingers around the door handle instead, glances back to him with a quirk of her brow. "Want to go for a walk with me, Castle?"

* * *

He accepts her invitation for a walk, of course, pleasantly surprised when Kate twines their fingers to lead him from the sidewalk, down one of the various paths the park offers. The anxiety he experienced yesterday doesn't disappear, still fluttering through his chest and ready to take flight, but she manages to center him with her voice before it can ascend.

"Like I was saying, I was thinking that you could make the drive to drop off Lily with me every other day," she murmurs, strolling with him under an archway of trees. "Then afterwards, we can come here, just... walk and talk, help acclimate you to your surroundings."

Castle nods, rhythmically squeezing her hand. "I think that could work."

And he really does. He's on edge, tense, but the volume of the city, the people around them, isn't so overwhelming like this. With Kate holding his hand and murmuring at his side, nothing is quite as bad.

"And on the days you stay home, I thought you could plan something to do with Lily - just the two of you."

He arches an eyebrow, intrigued by the idea, touched that she's obviously put a lot of thought into this since yesterday.

"Did you have any ideas?"

Kate absentmindedly skims her thumb along his index finger, eliciting sparks of electricity beneath the surface of his skin. It helps, though, narrowing his focus to the whorls of her fingertip searing his skin while he awaits her answer.

"She's always wanted to be an artist, but since you came back... she told me the other night while I was tucking her in that she wants to write books too," she reveals, coming to a stop beside a bench.

He grins at the information, his heart fluttering for an entirely different reason at the idea of Lily wanting to be anything like him. Kate draws him down to sit beside her and he nestles in close, their tangled hands sitting atop his thigh.

"We could write a story together," he muses aloud, already able to envision it. Lily has proven in his short time of knowing her that she has the imagination to thrive in the literary world, the artistic skills to excel in illustration. Creating something together could prove fun for the both of them and more importantly, it would give him the chance to bond with his little girl over something familiar.

When he glances back to her, Kate's watching him with a smile lacing along her lips, the gold in her eyes more prominent now with the darkened curls framing her face. It has him wanting to kiss her, taste the tenderness curling in the corners of her mouth. She must see it in his gaze, he doubts he's hiding it well, because she beats him to it.

"I think she'd love that," Kate murmurs, drawing their clasped hands to her lips, brushing a quick kiss to his knuckles before dropping them back to his thigh.

It's tentative, almost like a fresh start he never asked for. But he'll take it if it means sitting on park benches with Kate on quiet mornings after dropping their daughter off at school, holding hands and feeling his anxiety ease with every murmur of her voice.

He'll take it if it means getting to spend each day with her and their daughter.

* * *

He has breakfast with Lily and Kate the next morning before school, sitting beside his daughter at the bar and listening to her recount her latest dream about an elephant lost in a jungle.

"Hey Peanut," Kate murmurs, approaching from the kitchen sink. She always manages to finish her breakfast first, never having much to begin with. He wants to fix that, wants to go back to making her extravagant morning meals and always having her coffee hot and ready for her before she can walk out the door.

Lily glances up from her half finished bowl of cereal.

"Your dad is going to spend the morning here," Kate tells her gently, propping her elbows on the opposite side of the bar. "So it's just going to be you and me on the ride to school today, okay?"

Lily frowns and shifts on the barstool to face him. "I thought you liked coming with Momma to drop me off."

"I do," Castle assures her quickly. He and Kate talked about this last night, attempting to determine how to explain this to Lily in a way she will understand. There's no sure way to determine how she will react, all he's certain of is that he wants his daughter to know the truth. Or at least a kid-friendly version of it. "But you know how I was gone for such a long time?"

Lily nods solemnly. "Yeah, six whole years."

"Right," he sighs, turning in his seat to to lean towards her. "Well, I'm starting to remember some of that time-"

"Really?" she gasps, her brown eyes flaring wide, looking so hopeful _for_ him.

It has his heart twisting with grief and adoration at the same time.

"I dreamed about it actually, wrote down what I could remember in the notebook you gave me," he shares, watching the pride illuminate her features. He really doesn't want to risk dulling the shine in his daughter's eyes, scaring her with a watered down version of the truth that is still hard to swallow. But then Kate is moving in the corner of his vision, drifting closer in silent support, and he breathes past his doubts. "But one of the things I remembered was that for most of that time, I was by myself with no other people around."

Her face falls, just like he feared.

"You must have been so lonely," she says, causing his chest to tighten with a sharp ache.

"I - yes, I'm sure I was," he murmurs, forcing a quirk of his lips for his little girl. "But now that I'm back home, I'm never alone, which is great. I love being here with you and your mom and Alexis, but going out into the city... there are people _everywhere._ "

"New York has the most people of all the cities," Lily confirms. "Momma told me that a long time ago."

"Good memory, Peanut," Kate praises, but her eyes are on him.

"That's right, so after being by myself so long, it's - kinda scary to be surrounded by so many people again," he tries to explain. "It takes some getting used to."

Lily is quiet for a moment, her lips in that same pursed line he's seen on Kate during moments of concentration.

"Does this mean you can never come out of the loft?" she asks, lifting her eyes to him with concern.

"I'm still going to come out of the loft," he assures her with a gentle chuckle, reaching forward to place a tentative hand on her arm. But Lily doesn't tense or pull away from his touch, she simply stares back at him in curiosity. "I'll still go with you and your mom to drop you off too, just not every single day."

The smile returns to her lips as if it never left. "Oh, I get it! And after you're back to normal, you can come all the time."

He hesitates, a large part of him afraid he may never find his way back to 'normal', but Kate saves him the trouble of attempting to respond to that one.

"Exactly," she chimes in, reaching across the bar to squeeze his forearm. "Your dad just needs a little time to remember what living in a city is like."

"I bet it won't take long. You're already remembering lots of stuff, right?" she chirps, her eyes bright and encouraging.

He nods, fighting to keep the smile on his lips. "Right."

Kate's thumb brushes the knob of his wrist bone before her fingers are slipping away and she's straightening from the bar.

"It's almost seven-thirty, Lil. I'm going to get your backpack."

"Yes, Momma," Lily sighs, plucking a strawberry from the bowl of fruit next to her soggy cereal and popping it into her mouth.

"And to make up for the days I'm not able to go with you to school, I was thinking we could do something special together here afterwards," Castle picks up, standing from the barstool and withdrawing his hand from Lily's arm.

But she hops down after him a moment later, reclaims his fingers with hers.

"Like what?"

He pretends to ponder it while he walks with her to the door where Kate is waiting. "We could read, watch a movie, maybe even write a book."

"We could do that?" Lily breathes, bouncing on her toes beside him.

"Of course," he answers automatically, relishing in the excited squeeze of Lily's small fingers around his. "With your imagination and artistic talent, you'll have more best-sellers than me in no time."

Lily's cheeks blush a soft shade of pink and she hugs his waist before she steps away to accept her backpack from Kate.

"You just made her day," Kate murmurs in the doorway and he breathes a sigh of relief at that.

"Couldn't have done it without you."

Her lips quirk and she pauses before she follows Lily out into the hall, hesitating for only a moment before pressing a quick kiss to his cheek while their daughter isn't looking. "See you when I get back."

He feels his cheeks turn pink like Lily's. Not necessarily the kind of kiss from her he's used to, but close enough for now.

"And I'll see you after school," Lily adds, taking Kate's hand in the hallway but waiting for his response.

She's able to leave him now, but not without his confirmation first.

"Promise."

* * *

By the middle of the week, after a handful of evenings spent together in his office crafting stories with both words and crayons, Lily asks him to join her mom in tucking her in at night. He's held back from imposing on any nighttime routines while Kate and Lily have been staying at the loft, not wanting to upset the balance of their well-practiced patterns. But Kate welcomes him into the process of preparing Lily for bed and reading her a story.

She actually volunteers him for that last part, pressing the book into his hands.

"Come on, you're a best-selling author," she teases from the opposite side of Lily's bed.

She's curled up next to their daughter, grinning at him over Lily's head. He hesitates, glancing down to the book and back to the girl looking up at him expectantly.

Lily insists he read to her every night after that, praising his skill of voicing each character appropriately, making him laugh when she placates Kate with the assurance that she does just as good of a job.

"He's just got more practice because he writes books, Momma," Lily explains from between them a few nights later. "He can read me stories, you can read me Russian."

Castle's brow quirks. "Russian?"

"Helps when she can't sleep," Kate murmurs, the corner of her mouth curling at the intrigue she must spy in his gaze. Not that he's trying to hide it. "And that sounds good, Peanut. I like listening to your dad read too."

This week has him feeling like his life is regaining purpose. No matter what happens, he always has the task of reading to his little girl - along with Kate - at night to look forward to.

But he doesn't look forward to what comes afterwards.

He's grown to dread retiring to his bedroom alone, fighting to stay awake, staving off the nightmares. Not that it's any use. They always come now, blurs of memories, usually centered around the torture he endured.

He wakes nearly every night drenched in sweat, his back on fire with scars that thrive with pain that is no longer there, his wrists aching from being tied up. Because he remembers that part now. He remembers the sensation of his arms above his head, keeping him upright even as his knees buckled under the crack of rope - or maybe it was a cord, he still isn't positive of anything other than the pain it evoked. He remembers how it caused the fracture in his wrist, the healed bone singing with irritation each time he wakes.

More often than not, Kate is there when his eyes startle open. Sometimes she's the only thing to wake him. She draws him out of the dreams with soft words and fleeting touches, promises that he's safe.

He always tries his best to pull it together, to protect her from seeing the worst of it, but tonight is different. Tonight, he wakes to the sensation of suffocating, the noose around his neck nearly closing off his airway, and he swears he caught a glimpse of the man choking him to death with no intention of killing him yet.

Tonight, Kate doesn't find him until he's huddled in the bathroom, propped up against the wall next to the toilet because his head is spinning, his stomach churning, and he fears he could vomit at any moment.

He remembers. Not everything, not even close, but he remembers the beatings, the conversations, the psychological warfare Jerry Tyson inflicted upon him. He remembers being locked up in that damn room every day, being starved to the point of having to beg for the eggs he could hardly stomach. He remembers receiving 'updates' on Kate, on Alexis, suffering from the knowledge that a psychopath was watching the women he loved, threatening to break into their homes and make an "exception" for his love of blondes by strangling either one of them to death the second Castle misbehaved.

He remembers the mocking - how everyone he loved was moving on, forgetting about him, the newspaper article Tyson slid under the door of his cell.

 _NYPD detectives, Kate Beckett and Tom Demming, tie the knot._

"Women, huh?" Tyson sighed into the intercom, that red, blinking light Rick kept catching glimpses of in the dreams. "Only as loyal as their options. Sorry you missed the ceremony. Again."

"Castle," she breathes, not having to ask, rushing into the room in her leggings and an oversized t-shirt that was once his, squatting down in front of him. But he can't stop crying, weeping silently into his hands. "Rick, baby, talk to me."

"Doesn't make sense," he chokes out, shaking his head. "Not his M.O, not like him to-"

"Castle, who?" Kate presses, dropping to her knees in front of him and curling her hands at his bent ones. "Are you - did you see who took you?"

He nods, jerkily, almost afraid to tell her, what it might evoke her to do. The last thing he needs is Kate going rogue on him.

"I - I remember pieces of it all, not everything, but actual pieces not just flashes," he confesses, trying to get his breathing under control, trying to stop the stupid tears from trekking down his cheeks. It's over, he's free, Kate is here, there's no reason to cry. "I heard his voice, saw his face."

She's waiting with bated breath, but doesn't rush him, her hands remaining firmly curled atop his knees.

"It was Tyson," he exhales, lowering his hands. He drops his head back against the wall, glaring up at the ceiling. "Every day, it was him."

Kate has gone still in front of him, barely breathing from the sounds of it. He swallows hard, forces his eyes to descend from the ceiling to find her.

"Why?" she whispers, staring back at him with so much horror, that same look on her face from the night they went home after their first encounter with Kelly Nieman, played the USB drive on his laptop and heard that haunting song.

 _We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when._

It's been playing on a loop in his brain lately, a soundtrack to his subconscious mind that must have been played during his time in captivity. He _hates_ that song.

"I don't know, I don't - it was just memories of moments," he tries to explain. "Pieces of conversations, the beatings, updates-"

"Updates?" she repeats, her voice an unsteady croak.

"On you, Alexis, Mother - Mother was already gone. Couldn't get to her in London. But he - if I disobeyed he would hurt you," he confesses on a rush, surging towards her at the memory, sitting up and clutching at one of her hips. "Weekly updates, pictures in a manilla envelope. Alexis's college graduation, your wedding day-"

"No," she rasps, raising a hand to her eyes, her mouth crumpling with disgust.

"Torturing me," he recalls quietly, stabbing his elbow into his thigh and pressing his forehead into his palm. "In every way."

"I'll get a team-"

"Kate." He catches her by the wrist before she can rise and call the boys at three in the morning, have them digging up everything they have on 3XK. "It can wait-"

"No, it can't," she snaps, yanking her wrist, but he holds tight, drags her forward with a quivering arm. "Castle-"

"You can talk to the boys, to Gates, to the FBI agents already on the case, tomorrow," he insists, but she's trembling against him, frantic and angry and on the verge of falling apart in front of him for the first time since he's returned.

"No, no, I can't just - I spent six years having no idea where you were, just wanting you to be alive. But you were _gone_ and I was - god, Castle, I started to think I'd never see you again," she gets out raggedly, her red-rimmed eyes quickly sweeping over his face as if to dispel the idea right there. "He _beat_ you, he destroyed your back and got you shot and broke bones. Probably strangled you, didn't he?"

The bile in his throat threatens to rise and Kate chokes on an apology. She moves to get away from him, leave him alone, but he doesn't want her to go, doesn't want to let her go.

"Please," he rasps and she doesn't put up a fight, collapses against him, both of them a tangled mess on his bathroom floor, and he curls around her as she weeps quietly into his chest. "Kate, it's okay-"

"I really thought I lost you this time," she rasps, her words and her barely suppressed sobs muffled by the skin of his throat. "They all said you were dead and I let myself believe - that you could be because I couldn't find you, I just couldn't find you-"

"It's over, it's over, it's over," he whispers into her hair like a mantra, rocking them back and forth, letting her cry, letting his own tears leak silently onto the shoulder of her t-shirt. "I don't care if you have to chain me to your side, Beckett. You're not losing me again, I promise."

* * *

Kate crawls into bed with him once they're both finally able to rise from the bathroom floor, reclaiming her side as if she hasn't been sleeping elsewhere for years now. Two nights ago, Alexis confessed to him that Kate remained in the loft, in their bed, for months after his disappearance, before it just became too much. Until his scent was apparently too faded from the sheets.

The knowledge of that, experiencing her crumble to pieces in his lap on the bathroom floor, assures him that the nausea consuming his insides isn't going anywhere any time soon. The way he has broken her, whether it was his beyond his control or not, has been harrowing to witness. He almost hates himself for it, hates himself for being another person to abandon her, break her heart.

"I never knew how much she really loved you until I saw her fall apart when you were gone," his daughter admitted with a sad smile, the two of them sitting up with hot chocolate in the middle of the night even though Alexis had work in the morning. "When she started dating Tom nearly four years after… she was just so guilt-ridden, she even thought Gram and I would hate her for it." Alexis shook her head and cradled her cup in her hands, talking almost as if he wasn't there, the daze of the last six years blurring her eyes. "I told her she was family, that we would always be family, and I think that's the only reason she allowed it to go further than a friendship."

He didn't like hearing about Kate and Tom, about Kate with anyone but him. But he also didn't like the idea of Kate being so overridden with guilt for trying to move on after so long, to have a life that wasn't so heavily focused on the grief of losing him; he didn't like the look of shared guilt in his daughter's eyes for encouraging it either.

"She told me she loved me the other day," he blurted in response. The pleasantly surprised expression that swept over his daughter's face reminded him of when they were both younger, when Kate Beckett was still so out of reach that just a smile from her would have him gushing to his teenage daughter every night after he returned home from the precinct.

"Of course she does," Alexis grinned around the rim of her cup. "I had a bet with Lanie that it might be a while before she said it to your face again, but…"

Castle huffed, tossed a balled up napkin at her.

"But seriously," Alexis continued on a chuckle. "Come on, Dad. You're the love of her life, her _always_. It's not an 'if' with you two anymore like it was when I was a kid, it's a 'when'. Even Lily knows that."

He nearly choked on his cocoa.

" _What_?"

"She's a six year old who believes in magic and just witnessed her father, whom her mother has made no secret of still being in love with over the last six years, return from the supposed dead," Alexis summarized with an amused quirk of her brow. Wow, she really _has_ been spending a lot of time with Kate over the last few years. "That's enough to make anyone believe in fairytales."

He remained at the kitchen table with Alexis for a while longer that night before his not so little girl turned agent was yawning into her mug, letting him confiscate it from her fingers and walk with her up to her room.

He tucked her into bed, kissed her forehead like he used to.

"Love you, Pumpkin," he whispered, not wanting to make her cry, he never wanted to make her cry. But Alexis shifted up onto her elbow and hooked her other arm around his neck, buried the tears in his shoulder.

"I love you too, Daddy," she breathed and he stayed with her until she fell asleep, until beams of sunlight began to spill through her window.

Much like they'll soon be spilling through his since he managed to remain slumped on the floor with Kate for over an hour, subjecting her to the worst of his breakdown and holding her through hers.

"Lily," he murmurs while Kate adjusts her pillow next to his. She descends onto her side and curls her knees up, bumping into his beneath the sheets.

"I'll be up before it's time to wake her for school," she assures him, watching him with swollen, bloodshot eyes in the moonlit darkness. The glow of the city seeps in to splay across her body, the pale hollow of her cheek. "Just try to sleep, I'll wake you if you start having a nightmare."

"You gotta sleep too," he protests, already fighting the drag of slumber, so enticing now when she's right next to him.

"I will. I'm just a light sleeper, part of being a mom," she explains, her voice a caress through the quiet. "Always listening for her. But you already know how that goes."

"I love that you're a mom now," he sighs, coaxing the pink line of her lips to bloom into a delicate smile, small but stunning. "You're so good at it too, but I always knew you would be."

"Because of Benny?" she inquires with a grin and he almost startles himself back into full wakefulness with the bark of his laughter.

"You remember that?"

"Of course," she shrugs, the memory of them playing house with an abandoned baby for a night still so fresh for him, but years old for her. "Not because of Benny then?"

"No," he chuckles, enjoying the lovely expression on her face, how comfortable she looks back in his bed, how her eyes mirror the adoration he can feel overflowing in his. "I just always knew."

"You're a good dad," she returns, inching her hand into the space between them. He hastily withdraws his from beneath his pillow, lets her have it. "I always knew because of Alexis, but watching you with Lily just this past week alone… you're so good with her and she adores you, Rick. Not something she does lightly."

He wonders how long it took his youngest daughter to accept Tom and quickly blinks the thought away. This moment with Kate is too special, too pure, for him to mar it with bitterness.

"I'm grateful," he murmurs honestly. "When you told me, in the hospital, I was afraid she wouldn't want anything to do with me."

"No." He watches Kate trace her fingertips along the inside of his wrist, over his hand, following heartlines and ridges of bone, the sensation soft and drugging. "Never."

He curls his fingers, trapping hers, but she doesn't try to break the hold. Kate draws their tangled hands to her chest, allows him to feel the lullaby of her heartbeat against his knuckles.

"Thank you," he slurs, not even sure which part he's thanking her for. All of it, probably. "Night, love you."

He hears her hum, swears he feels her lips brush the back of his hand, before he can sink below the surface of a dreamless sleep.

"Until tomorrow, Castle."

* * *

Kate has made more connections within the FBI during Castle's time away and she waits until he is well and truly under in sleep before she slips from his bed.

She is silent in her ascent up the stairs to retrieve her phone from Martha's room, hesitating at the near 5 a.m. timestamp on her screen, but she unlocks the device, opens up her contacts anyway. Jerry Tyson is still out there, so is Kelly Nieman. She would bet that Nieman was the brains behind this abduction, the parts of Tyson's M.O that didn't make sense to Castle.

Kate closes her eyes against the look of utter horror that consumed every inch of his face, the sheer lack of understanding as he confessed his memories of Tyson to her.

She's never seen him so afraid, so lost and scared, not like this; she jabs her thumb to the contact pulled up on her screen.

"Agent Stephens, Detective Kate Beckett," she addresses, quiet but clipped the moment Mark answers. "I apologize for disturbing you so late, but I have vital information on Rick Castle's suspected kidnappers."

* * *

Kate tells Stephens that she can't talk long, too anxious to be away from Castle for long. She runs through all of the facts they have so far, what little information Rick was able to give her, listening to the scribbling of a pen on paper as she speaks. Stephens promises to do a search on Tyson and Nieman as soon as he arrives at the office and despite how badly it irks her to leave this in the hands of someone else, she accepts it.

For now.

She offers one more apology for waking him before hanging up and then she's returning downstairs on the tips of her toes within fifteen minutes of leaving Castle's bed. He hasn't moved, but he grunts when the mattress shifts under her as she slides back beneath the sheets, settling beside him.

"Kate?" he mumbles, his eyes fighting to open, and she reaches for his hair without thinking, combs her fingers through the locks like she used to. He hums, tilts into her touch. Kate scoots in a little closer, careful not to jostle him, to touch any of his injuries, healed or not. "Time to take Lily to school?"

A surprised smile flickers across her mouth and she smoothes her fingers along the shell of his ear, the softness of his lobe.

"No, still got a couple of hours," she whispers, not quite able to stop touching him, stroking his jaw, running her fingers through the unshaven hair of the light beard that's been driving him crazy. His sunburn has finally faded, his skin tanned but back to its natural color. She makes a note to remind him to shave tomorrow, eager to see him how she remembered. Even if the facial hair is kind of hot.

"Good, go to sleep," he rumbles, practically purring beneath the ministrations of her fingers.

"I will," she promises, but she doesn't, she can't. She remains awake, her hand never leaving Castle until it's time to go wake Lily.

A night of grazing his face with gentle fingers, caressing the vulnerable skin of his neck and trailing along his arm, is almost enough to convince her that it's real. It's almost enough to make her believe that she doesn't need the reminders anymore, that she never had a reason to question it in the first place.


	12. Chapter 12

He doesn't expect Kate to concede to staying for another week, even when Lily asks with her bright eyes and hopeful smile, and she doesn't exactly. At least not right away.

"How about this," Kate begins to bargain with their daughter during their final scheduled night in the loft. She's sitting beside Lily on her bed, unaware of his presence outside the door. And he isn't trying to spy, really. He just doesn't want to interrupt. "You know I have to go back to the precinct tomorrow and then I have to do some work around the apartment-"

"With Tom?" Lily asks and he instantly stiffens, but Kate merely huffs.

"You know, listening in on other people's conversations will only get you into trouble."

"I wasn't _trying_ to eavesdrop, Momma," Lily explains, not necessarily convincing, and oh, she really _is_ his child. "I just forgot to turn the music on in my headphones while you were talking to him on the phone yesterday."

"Liar," Kate mutters. He hears Lily giggling, smiles to himself at the sound, the mother-daughter dynamic he was never able to provide Alexis when she was a little girl. "But yes, Tom will probably stop by in the evening, just to make sure he has all of his stuff."

"So you guys _are_ getting a divorce?" Lily inquires a little quieter.

Castle holds his breath while Kate sighs.

"Does that bother you?"

A beat of silence passes.

"No," Lily answers, but he can hear the uncertainty in her voice, the reluctance. "I want you to be with my dad, but not just because he's my dad," she rushes to add. Castle leans in a little closer to the doorframe. "When he was missing, you were so sad because you loved him so much. And if you still love him that much, he should be your always again."

 _Your always_. It's the second time one of his daughters has used that phrase. In the past, he's referred to the person you're supposedly meant to be with in tired and overused terms - 'the one', a 'soulmate', 'Prince Charming' for Alexis when she was younger - but Kate has given him an entirely new and far more valuable title.

"He never stopped being my always," Kate murmurs softly. He can so effortlessly picture her getting more comfortable against the headboard, wrapping an arm around Lily, maybe combing her fingers through their daughter's lengthening hair. "And that's why Tom and I are separating, but that doesn't mean we won't be friends anymore."

Lily's quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "Is Tom upset?"

"He's sad," Kate admits on a sigh.

"Because we aren't his family anymore?"

"I - family isn't always about who you live with, you know." He listens to Kate try to explain. "Tom will always be family in a way, kinda like how Uncle Javi and Ryan are family even though they aren't really my brothers."

"But different," Lily clarifies, too smart for her own good by the sounds of it.

"But different," Kate confirms. He can feel her nerves radiating from the room even though he can't see her, can hear the guilt dripping into her voice. "I love Tom, it's just... not enough, not fair to him. He's always been a good friend to me, but I - if I'd known your dad was alive, I think Tom and I would have just stayed friends."

Lily hums, a contemplative little sound. "Does he… does Tom stop loving me now? Since he's not gonna be my step-dad anymore?"

"Of course he still loves you," Kate assures her without a moment's hesitation, and Castle never thought he would be so glad for it. "Just because he and I aren't together doesn't mean he has to stop being your step-dad, your friend. Tom cares about you very much, Lily, and I know he's happy you have your dad back."

"He is?" Lily asks, tentative, and Kate hums her affirmation.

"He wants what's best for you. And for me," she adds a little softer and damn, he really can't hate Demming so much any more now, can he? "But, what I was going to say was, what if we just spend a couple of days back at home, so I can get some things together? Then I can talk to your dad about us staying here again for a little longer."

"Deal," Lily decides and he takes that as his cue.

Castle waits for a breath before he eases his head around the entryway to peer inside. Only to find Kate already staring right at him.

Damn.

"Or, your dad can just tell us what he thinks of the plan right now," she murmurs, arching an eyebrow at him, and yeah, she totally knew he was there the whole time.

Lily's head whips towards him and she grins. Dismounting from the bed, she trots across the short distance to stand in front of him, staring up at him with those wide brown eyes. "What do you think?"

"I think you can stay as long as you want." Castle bends to scoop Lily into his arms, propping her on his hip and pecking a kiss to her cheek as she hugs his neck. "And that you should always listen to your mom no matter what."

"Mm, not going to save you, Castle," she deadpans from the bed. But any annoyance she harbors at the knowledge of him listening in on her conversation with Lily seems to be fading as she watches him sway back and forth with their daughter clinging to him.

* * *

"I wasn't trying to spy on you. Or eavesdrop," he insists in a whisper the moment they step out of Lily's bedroom. He holds up his hands in supplication. Rick looks genuinely apologetic, sheepish even though she has yet to say a word. "Kate-"

"It's okay," she murmurs, but stalls in front of him in the hallway rather than starting for the stairs. Castle's head tilts in question, but he waits with both interest and unease for what else she has to say. "I just - I don't want you to worry about this anymore, to feel threatened."

"Threatened?" he repeats, apparently not understanding, and she scrapes a hand through her hair.

She hates that he's going to make her say it, that she feels guilty for saying it at all.

"By my relationship with Tom," she supplies, resisting the urge to pin her bottom lip between her teeth and averting her eyes to the wall instead. "I just - you already know what you are to me, probably just had it confirmed if you were listening as long as I think you were."

He huffs, runs a hand through his hair when she sneaks a peek at him, looking like a chastised little boy.

"I guess I'm just… waiting for you to realize what you're leaving behind," he shrugs, a rueful expression spreading across his face, his eyes darting to land on anything but her.

"Castle, do you know what Tom said to me the day you were released from the hospital?"

His eyes do snap back to her at that, hesitation and curiosity piqued in his gaze, and she takes a step closer.

"He told me he wouldn't try to convince me to make things work when he knew I couldn't love him while you were still alive," she recounts, feeling that familiar flutter of shame in the pit of her stomach. But she looks back to Castle, all she has to do, and it slowly dissipates. "And there was just nothing I could say back to refute it. It's not about choosing between the two of you, or even what's best for Lily," she confesses, watching the blues of his irises deepen with color, intrigue and hope. "It may not be easy, but to me, love is… it's not supposed to be easy, not all the time. It's difficult and painful and raw, but - when it's right..."

He's watching her as if he's hanging on her every word, the shade of blue in his eyes mercurial, beautiful. She sighs, strokes a hand to the smooth skin of his cheek.

"You showed me that when it's right, it's can be extraordinary, worth any struggle. And that's why I'm here, with you, because it's also best for _me_. It's what I want and that isn't changing."

"Wow, Beckett," he murmurs, his voice gruff, but his eyes are warm. "Thought I was supposed to be the writer."

It's a light attempt at a joke, but she's been dying to ask him about that too, about Nikki and Rook, whether or not their story is truly over, if they'll ever receive the ending they deserve. But the smile on his lips is too fragile right now and she doesn't want to do anything to make it disappear. Not when it's become as rare of a thing as her own.

"Picked up a thing or two after being stuck." She shrugs, smirking, and tilts her head towards the stairs. "Want to watch a movie or something before bed?" she asks as they start down the steps. "There's a new Star Wars film-"

He gasps and she hides her grin behind the curtain of her hair.

* * *

Tom has already cleared out most of his stuff. What was once their bedroom is practically wiped clean of any trace of him, of their marriage ever existing. It proved so easy to erase himself from her life and she already feels like she owes him another thousand apologies for that.

They haven't spoken in person since the day Castle was released from the hospital, talking on the phone like colleagues rather than spouses. It reminds her that maybe marrying another detective was not the best idea when it comes to her communication issues.

 _Ying needs Yang, not another Ying._

Castle's words from so long ago, the silly quip about a panda, have always stuck with her, interfered in her dating life, and they flicker through her mind again now. She shakes her head at how irritatingly accurate he always was about her, and returns to sorting through her closet.

They aren't moving in with Castle and Alexis; they're just going to be hanging around the loft for an unforeseen amount of time and she doesn't want to have to continue going back and forth for clothes and toiletries.

And art supplies, in Lily's case. Even though Castle promptly offered to buy the girl the entire arts and crafts store down the street when she ran out of blue paint over the weekend.

"Momma," Lily calls, her bounding footsteps signalling her arrival into Kate's bedroom.

"In the closet," she answers, tearing her attention away from her shoes as she hears Lily's gallop veer to the left, and then her daughter is skidding to a stop in the closet doorway. "I know I'm not supposed to open the door by myself, but my dad is here, so can I-"

"What?" she breathes, jerking up from the floor. She follows Lily out of her room to the foyer with her heart thundering in her chest. "Are you sure it's-"

Oh, but yeah, there he is on the other side of her front door when she checks the peephole.

"Castle," she hisses under her breath, tugging the door open. She instinctively checks over his shoulder, scanning the hallway, but it's just him. And he's apparently brought Chinese food.

"Hey," he greets, and then hesitantly after catching the look on her face. "I'm guessing you didn't get my text?"

"Text? You have a phone?" she asks, feeling like an idiot for not thinking of that sooner.

He nods like an excited little kid, pulls the device from his pocket to show her, earning an exclamation of approval from Lily.

"Wow, you got the new one with all the cool stuff they show on the commercials!"

"I know, right? Alexis got it for me. And, I think as payback for her teenage years, she enabled it with a tracker," he explains and oh, thank god for Alexis Castle.

"Remind me to thank her," Kate mumbles, raking a hand through her hair and inhaling a breath through her nose. He's fine, nothing happened and Alexis has an eye on him now, but _still_ \- "How did you get here?"

"I took a cab," he shrugs, but she merely stares back at him. Castle glances to Lily before she can ask the questions he must see crowding at her lips and she sighs, motions for him to come inside. "I texted to ask if it was okay if I brought over some dinner. Probably should have waited for a reply."

He offers her a sheepish look, but she waves him off, walks beside him to the dining room table.

"That's okay! Right, Momma? Chinese is our favorite," Lily informs him.

"I remember," Castle chuckles before pausing, correcting himself. "Well, I remember it was your mom's, but it doesn't surprise me that she passed down her love of Chinese food to you."

Lily beams back at him, announces that she'll set the table, and Kate takes the opportunity to tug Castle to the side. She steers him towards the living room, out of Lily's earshot.

"Rick-"

"I was okay," he's already placating her, cupping her shoulders in his palms. "Those short walks we've been taking over the last week have helped a lot with adjusting and-"

"It's not just that," she whispers, unable to grasp how he doesn't seem to comprehend why this is such a big deal. "Castle, you were out there _alone_. What if Tyson and Nieman are watching, what if-"

"Whoa, Nieman?" he questions with a furrow in his brow. "I never mentioned her."

"No, but come on, she had to be involved," she insists, feeling the dread coiling in her stomach as his pupils slowly begin to dilate, tainting his eyes with darkness, and eclipsing the lovely blue that was present when he walked in. But she presses on. "She and Tyson were a team and everything that doesn't fit his M.O, fits hers."

Castle lets out a breath and tightens his grip on her shoulders.

"You're already investigating this, aren't you? How long did that take you after I told you what I remembered, Kate? Have you already started making calls, hung the murder board back up in your office?"

He looks so disappointed in her, even as he spears her with his words, jabs at her obsessive nature, but no - no, she has no reason to feel guilty, to be ashamed of her actions. She's trying to fight for him, to get him the justice he deserves, just like she has been for years now.

"They are still out there," she gets out through grit teeth. "They could come _back_ for you."

"There are FBI details on me, on you, on Lily and Alexis. They told us that the first day in the hospital-"

"And you think that'll be enough?" she demands, the panic of possibilities climbing up her throat while indignations swirls through her blood. This is the same man who reminded her just how ineffective a security detail is against a determined killer all those years ago when Bracken was their biggest problem. He knew it wasn't enough then and when she reads past the denial in his gaze, she can see that he knows it isn't enough now. "You just took a cab here alone, made yourself vulnerable to-"

"And nothing happened," he points out, squeezing her shoulders, but she's on the verge of shaking him off. "I've been careful about going outside and being on my own because of the PTSD, not Tyson. He's already taken everything from me - six years of my life, a huge chunk of my memories... he's not taking anything else. It's been two weeks, I'm free, and if he wanted to come after me again, he would have."

Kate pushes a hand through her hair, takes a breath to refrain from ripping it out.

"Castle, what do we know about Tyson?" His jaw squares at the question. "You know he gets off on calculated plans - planting Ryan's gun, framing you for murder, kidnapping you on our wedding day. Those weren't just overnight decisions."

"You think I don't know Jerry Tyson after six years? Closer to eight, actually, if we count the times we dealt with him prior to all of this. He's not going to come after me like this. Not when there are cameramen camped out all over my block, surrounding my building, when my face is all over the press, on the news every night now."

"How can you know him?" she snaps, ignoring his presentation of logic, his confidence, letting her fears tear it all down. "How can you know any of this when you barely remember the last six years?"

Castle's hands drop from her shoulders, his face a mask of stone. "I remember enough."

She sighs, resists the urge to reach for him. "I just don't want to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders, Rick. I want you safe and I want them behind bars, I want them to pay for what they did to you-"

"I _know_. You think I don't want the same things?" he growls at her, but he looks far more sad than angry. "And I trust that we'll get them, but I don't want to go after this so hard that it brings him down on me, on you, on Lily."

"Castle-"

"I don't want him to _come back,_ " he whispers, scraping a hand through his hair. "I just want you, the girls, and..." His throat ripples with a swallow, but it doesn't stop his voice from shaking. "And for this to not all be taken away again."

"Table's all ready!" Lily calls and Castle pastes on a smile right away.

"Be right there, just going to use the bathroom," he answers with ease, a slight strain to his voice that only Kate can detect.

But he turns away without looking at her, retreats to the bathroom of her en suite, and for the first time since he's come home, she doesn't think he wants her to follow.


	13. Chapter 13

Rick doesn't close the elegant double doors of the en suite bathroom because he's the empty space of her bedroom offers enough privacy. He braces his hands atop the edges of her pedestal sink, squeezes his eyes shut against the building headache between his brows.

He knew it would only be a matter of time before Kate dove into his case, and it isn't that he doesn't want her involved in it, he just… wanted some time to simply _be_ with her before he became a victim in a case she has to solve. He doesn't remember enough about his time with Tyson (and supposedly Nieman, because yeah, she has a good point about her being involved), can't yet remember how he survived each day, but he knows that Kate was a driving force, that the idea of coming back to her must have been one of the few things that kept him going for so long.

And now that he's back, slowly regaining bits and pieces that he lost without even knowing, he just wants the opportunity to savor this second chance at having his life back. He wants to _not_ think about Tyson, about all of the damage that he now carries both internally and externally because of the man. He doesn't want to answer questions every minute of the day, doesn't want to spend his time dragging himself back through that terror and pain; he wants to be with his family. He wants to be who he was before he was abducted on his wedding day, before he spent six years practically dead to the world.

He wants to not be afraid anymore.

 _They could come back._

She's right, he knows that too, but he can't live his life with this gut wrenching paranoia. Every damn day he finds himself on the verge of falling apart and he just can't handle one more thing.

Rick sighs, feels the scars across his back stretch with the expansion of his ribs.

At least, he thinks, the entire FBI must be on a manhunt searching for the serial killer and his potential accomplice by now.

"Castle?"

He opens his eyes to the mirror, watches as Kate appears in the doorway behind him. He can see the regret on her face, remorse drawing down the corners of her mouth.

"I'll be right out," he sighs, straightening up in front of the sink, but she continues inside anyway.

He turns with an objection on his lips, doesn't have the energy to fight about this tonight, but Kate is striding up to him with familiar intent in her eyes.

And oh, he knows that look.

Her hands are cradling his face before he can process it, her body surging like a wave and crashing into him. And then her mouth is draping over his, warm and firm and all he's wanted since the moment he woke up in that hospital bed.

Castle sighs into her kiss, wrapping his arms around her body to spin them around. He pins her against the sink with his hips and a moan catches in her throat - god, he's missed that sound.

Taking advantage of her slightly parted lips, he tentatively touches his tongue to the seam of her mouth, earning the curl of her fingers in his hair, trying to pull him closer and pressing her chest firmly against his.

He nips at her bottom lip, relishing the soft sound of her gasp as he slides his hands down her sides, feels the shudder wrack her bones. In one fluid movement, he lifts her onto the edge of the sink, stepping between her parted thighs before she can dig her heels into his flanks. His fingers thread through her hair before returning to cradle her face, savoring the sharp edges of her jaw working against his palms as she kisses him with a devastating ardency.

"Kate," he breathes, his heart thundering so hard in his chest, he has to catch his breath at the corner of her mouth. She turns her head, seeking even as he grazes his lips along the slash of her cheekbone. "Dinner."

"I know," she gets out, tightening the taut muscles of her thighs at his waist and hooking her ankles at his back. "I just-" Kate tilts her chin, their noses bumping and breaths shared. Her lips are brushing over his, her eyes fluttering shut, lashes like butterfly wings against his cheeks.

Savoring, just like he is.

"This is real," she finally exhales.

He withdraws ever so slightly, stares into the ink pools of her eyes, liquid and golden and intent on him. Her arms are hooked around his neck and her fingers bridged at his nape, every part of her holding on.

Castle touches his mouth to hers once more, sighs out at the wet heat of her tongue, the caress of her lips so soft and delicate over his. One of her hands rises to his cheek, fingertips dusting along his jaw, lingering on his chin.

"This past week - you have no idea how much I missed this," he confesses into the altar of her mouth, resisting the urge to suck her bottom lip into his mouth, lave his tongue over it until her hips do that thing-

"Yes, I do," she murmurs, unhooking her ankles, her legs falling to a loose twine around his. "And if our six year old daughter wasn't in the next room, probably almost finished with the egg roll I set her up with, I'd show you."

Her voice is a low husk, dousing him in gasoline. Castle lets out a choked breath, drops his forehead against hers before he does something stupid like place an open mouthed kiss to the gorgeous skin of her throat, the sensitive spot behind her ear…

"Sorry," she chuckles, cupping his face in her hands and exhaling a deep breath that fans out across his lips. Still not helping. "And sorry for overstepping, for being so… headstrong about Tyson and Nieman, your case-"

"I don't want you to be sorry," he murmurs, untangling his fingers from the waves of her hair, doing his best to comb through it, tame the disheveled locks. "Headstrong, that's who you are, who I fell in love with, and I don't want that to change."

"But?" she whispers.

His nostrils flare. "But I just don't want it to be all that matters."

"It's not," she insists, their lashes twining once again when she looks up to see him. "I'm just… I'm so afraid of losing you again, of Lily losing you. Fuck, Castle, I've never been so scared in my life. You think you've missed this. You've had a week. I've had six years. I _can't_ survive it again."

Castle bands his arms around her, hugs her so tight that their ribs crush together and he can feel her heartbeat pounding against his chest. But Kate seems to welcome the embrace, pressing her chin to his collarbone, her face buried against his throat.

"It won't happen again," he promises, even though he knows he shouldn't, that it's not fair to. But the tension in her shoulders loosens at the reassurance and Kate pulls back with a quiet sigh, layers her hands at his chest. "I'll meet with that agent assigned to my case this week, amend my statement. Or, well, actually give one since that last one was kind of lackluster."

"Only if you're ready to talk about it." She unwinds her arms from around him, her legs too, and he steps back to allow her the room to slip from the sink, back to her feet. She returned to the precinct today and she's still wearing her work clothes, a fitted white blouse and black slacks that trail slightly past her heels without her shoes. "I know it's all still fresh, that there's still more to be remembered, and I just want you to be okay as they come, Castle. No pressure," she murmurs, reaching up to smooth down his hair and he can't help but grin.

Kate Beckett mussed his hair while they made out on her bathroom sink. Life suddenly isn't so bad.

"Thank you," he answers belatedly, swaying forward to seal a kiss to her forehead, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair, that cherry lotion that blends with her shampoo and seeps into her skin. "Now, before Lily comes searching…"

Kate hums a laugh against his chin and reaches for his hand. She slips her palm to press against his in a firm kiss and laces their fingers, leads him out of the bathroom, her bedroom, to join their daughter for dinner.

* * *

Two days later, she's standing beside him in the elevator of the Twelfth, acutely aware of the déjà vu pricking at her senses. The precinct has been both hell and heaven through the last six years. His absence was a palpable thing, piercing through her every time she stood alone at the murderboard, let her eyes slide to the empty chair beside her desk. But it's the place that kept her hope alive, where she was able to find those vestiges of strength to continue the search.

Ryan and Esposito have been on her side from the day Castle disappeared, searching for him in their groomsmen's tuxes, leading task forces to find him in the weeks that followed, and working privately with her when the FBI resources went away within a few months. Lanie provided her the same unwavering moral support, staying up with her countless nights on the phone, sitting beside Kate in her living room, doing her best to offer comfort and hope. Letting her cry.

"That man is so in love with you, girl. He'll fight through hell and highwater to get back to you," Lanie assured her one night during those first few months of him being gone, flicking her gaze to Kate's stomach. "He'd be fighting even harder if he knew about baby Castle in there."

But even though her best friend smiled softly at the small bump of Beckett's stomach, it was an ongoing struggle for Kate herself to enjoy her pregnancy. Every surge of excitement was smothered by the sorrow evoked by his lack of presence, every milestone passed without him there.

It was a quiet experience overall, a melancholy nine months sprinkled with rare moments of joy, but after giving birth, it was no longer possible to keep Lily a secret. She did manage to keep her out of the press, though, and apparently out of Tyson and Nieman's line of fire, and that's all that matters.

Having an entire division of cops claiming Lily as family doesn't hurt either.

Initially, she didn't let anyone aside from her father, Castle's mother and daughter, and her immediate family at the precinct know about her pregnancy. She was lucky to have had a bump that remained small, easy to hide beneath thick sweaters and bulky coats. It allowed her to persist in showing up to work on Castle's case, until Gates quietly forced her into maternity leave.

Not that it stopped her from coordinating with the boys from her apartment up until the day of Lily's arrival.

"You sure you'll be okay with all of this?" Kate asks him in the elevator. He shoots her another baleful look, because really, she's being ridiculous and even she knows it.

He's improved so much since their first, unsuccessful attempt at an outing nearly two weeks ago. The noises of the city, the bright lights and unrelenting slew of people no longer paralyze him with panic; his confidence is returning, slowly but surely. She just doesn't want him to become overwhelmed in the next few minutes, especially by those who love him, have missed him.

"I'll be fine, Kate," he assures her, snagging her hand before they can reach the Homicide floor and pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles that has her heart skipping beats.

The doors part and he moves to release her hand right away, but she twines their fingers, leads him out of the elevator and into a room full of officers and detectives. New and old faces both. But it's Ryan who notices them first, his blue eyes twinkling as he jumps up from his desk, bounds over to meet them.

"Hey, Castle," he greets excitedly.

Beckett lets go of Castle's hand so he can receive Ryan's embrace. He hugs the other man back for a long moment, his eyes suspiciously shiny, before releasing him as a crowd begins to form.

She feels Castle tense up just a little at the influx of human contact, the low roar of chatter, but he maintains his composure, loosening when she presses her shoulder to his.

"Ah, Mr. Castle, back and causing a ruckus in my precinct once again," Captain Gates sighs, officers parting for her like the red sea while she approaches from her office. A gentle smile is on her lips as Gates draws him into a quick hug, and Kate bites back a smile of her own at the startled express claiming Castle's face. "I never thought I'd be so glad to have you back."

"Thank you," he replies once she pulls away. "I think."

When the huddle around him begins to disperse, Gates chiding softly for everyone to get back to work, Castle looks over to her with relief and a hint of pride.

"Your desk still in the same place?"

"Of course," she murmurs, bumping his hip and nodding towards her work station.

Castle practically trots over, surprise igniting in his gaze when it lands on his chair.

"You kept this."

Kate follows after him, leaning her hip against the edge of her desk while Castle takes his time lowering himself into his chair. He stares up at her with far too much wonder once he's seated, clutching her heart without even trying.

"I wouldn't let anyone move it," she admits. "Besides, it's a good spot for Lily to sit whenever she's here with me."

At the mention of their daughter, Castle's eyes stray to her desk, finding the framed photos he was likely hoping for. He isn't able to examine them for long, though. Agent Mark Stephens is already emerging from the elevator, walking towards them with a polite smile that has always felt like such a contradiction to his intimidating stature.

The tall agent with dark skin and even darker eyes possesses a domineering presence, commanding the entire floor's attention through his stride across the bullpen. She thinks it's what makes him so good at his job - wielding a great deal of power in his appearance alone, yet proving likable in one on one interactions, empathetic with the victims of his cases. Like Castle.

Kate touches the small of Rick's back as he rises from the chair, keeps it there during their moment of reacquaintance with the FBI agent. He's here to speak with Castle again, listen to what he's remembered since their last interview in the hospital.

Stephens leads the way and Rick obediently follows the man towards the conference room with Kate at his back.

"You sure you don't want me to go in with you?"

She's not trying to hover, to listen in, she just... doesn't want him to feel like he has to do any of this alone.

But when Castle turns in the conference room doorway, it's his turn to reassure her.

"I'll be fine," he repeats, squeezing her hip before he steps inside.

"And he won't be long, Detective," Stephens promises her, following Castle into the room and shutting the door.

She trusts him. She actually likes the agent; he's done his best to remain on Castle's case, provide her with resources, and for as long as possible. He's the only agent who has actually given a damn even when all of his colleagues (and most of hers) lost interest, lost faith in the idea of Rick even being alive.

Kate takes a deep breath, reminds herself that he's in good hands, and turns away from the conference room to start back towards her desk where Esposito is waiting.

"Hey, where were you during the welcoming committee?" she questions with a quirk of her eyebrow, but her teammate, her friend, doesn't look amused. "Espo, what's wrong?"

Esposito purses his lips, straightens from his propped position against her desk. "Has Castle been able to tell you what happened yet?"

Her brow falls into a slight crease, not sure where this is going, but she shrugs one of her shoulders.

"He's had a few flashes. Nothing concrete aside from his certainty that Tyson is the main perpetrator, the one who tortured him," she recounts, information Esposito already knows. She hasn't gone into detail with the boys, but she has filled them in on the basics, put 3XK and Nieman back on their radar, and it has definitely lit a fire under Ryan's ass to find the serial killer. "Why?"

"You guys looked pretty cozy coming in here. I'm assuming you're back together?" Esposito prompts.

Kate crosses her arms over her chest, squares her jaw. "What's with the interrogation, Espo?"

He takes a step closer to her, lowers his voice. "I'm just trying to look out for you here, Beckett."

"Look out for me? For what?" she questions, utterly confused now.

Esposito's nostrils flare with the rise of his chest.

"This guy disappears on your wedding day, is missing for six years, and then suddenly comes back out of nowhere, no memory or nothing, and it's been what now? Two weeks and he's broken up your marriage, probably gotten Lily attached to him-"

"Esposito," Kate growls under her breath, not liking what he's insinuating. She knows that Javier has always been the more protective of her boys, the big brother beatdown type, but this is _Castle_. "What you're implying is way out of line."

"Is it, Beckett?"

"Hey, Javi," Ryan cuts in, his eyes darting between them. "There's no need to do this right now."

"Come on, bro. He's playing her, playing us all," Esposito snaps.

Kate balls her hands into fists, cuts her nails into her palms.

"You think I'm stupid enough to get played?" she questions, doing nothing to hide the bite in her voice. "You think I didn't explore the option of him _choosing_ to leave when we _started_ this investigation six years ago? You think I didn't ask every question imaginable to try and understand his disappearance?"

"I _think_ that your judgement got clouded. Like it usually does when you're too close to a case," he mutters and Ryan sucks in a breath, positions himself as if to step between them.

"You didn't see his face when he realized what happened, when he realized how long he's been gone," she snarls out in a whisper. "You haven't seen his body, what he went through-"

"What he could have made it look like he went through," Esposito challenges.

She could slap him right there, her blood beginning to boil, but Ryan insinuates himself partially between them then.

She sidesteps him. "There is no motive," she grinds out. "No viable reason that he would have done this, no reason for him to come back if he had."

"It's too convenient," Esposito argues. "It doesn't make any sense, none of it, and if you were acting like the detective I know you to be, you would see that, see that you're putting yourself and your kid in-"

" _Enough_ ," she growls and Ryan places a hand on Esposito's shoulder.

"Lily doesn't need some deadbeat dad."

"Yeah?" Kate snaps, no longer trying to lower her voice, ignoring Ryan's distressed gesturing, and glares back at the man who's like a brother to her but is stabbing at her heart with his words. "Well, she doesn't need a jackass uncle throwing accusations at her father either."

Suddenly, Esposito's eyes flick over her shoulder and Kate follows his gaze with dread, finds Castle and Stephens standing behind them. The agent is dutifully looking elsewhere and Castle is staring back at Esposito with shock and… so much hurt.

She doesn't waste another breath on Esposito, stepping forward and hooking an arm around Castle's waist, nodding to Stephens and coaxing Rick to walk with her towards the break room.

"They… think I faked it?" he whispers, glancing down at her with the confusion prevalent in his gaze.

Kate shakes her head.

"No, Esposito is just - paranoid," she mutters, but it doesn't seem to register. "And a bully."

"But I didn't," he mumbles as they enter the break room. Stephens has followed them and settles at the table, waits patiently while Kate closes the door.

Castle leans against it. "Kate, I swear I-"

"Rick." She moves to stand in front of him, cups his face in her hands and urges him to look at her, holding his troubled gaze. "I believe you. I never said I didn't."

"Good, because I wouldn't. I'd never do this to you, to Alexis, my mother, Lily," he presses on, curling his fingers at her wrists.

"I know," she whispers, brushing her thumb to the smudge of purple beneath his eye, the lack of sleep showing up in evidence along his skin. No matter what anyone says, no one could fake this, the exhaustion, the nightmares.

No one could fake that terrified look in his eyes when she finds him after a bad dream, drenched in sweat and horror atop his bed or huddled in the bathroom.

"You're not a suspect, Mr. Castle," Agent Stephens adds solemnly from the table. "We ruled out your compliance quite early on in the investigation."

The deep crease in Rick's brow fails to relax, the downward curve of his mouth evoking the parenthesis of his frown lines. They're far more prominent than they were six years ago and she brushes her thumb to the distressed indention.

"Come on," she murmurs, lowering her hands from his cheeks and taking one of his arms, encouraging him to join her at the break room table with Stephens, who waits with the file already open in front of him.

She listens as the agent goes over the FBI's official investigation notes from the last six years, compared to all of the information Castle just relayed to him during their meeting in the conference room. But she can tell that Castle is only half-heartedly paying attention, his eyes continuously blinking, distracted.

"We don't have too much on Tyson, barely anything on Nieman aside from what you've given us, Detective Beckett, but we'll keep digging. Just having suspects at all makes a huge difference. Thank you for having the courage to share with me, Mr. Castle," Stephens offers, his voice never losing that gruff quality she's sure has intimidated many suspects in the past. Despite that, it holds an underlying layer of kindness for Castle.

Rick forces a lift of his lips, nods in response, and automatically gets to his feet beside her as Stephens gathers his things to leave.

"I'll call you if any new information comes to light, or if I have any follow up questions," the agent states, reaching across the table to shake both their hands. "Feel free to do the same."

"Sounds good, thank you," Beckett returns while the man makes his way to the door.

She waits until it's shut behind him to turn back to Castle, sighing at the stricken look still carved into his face.

"Castle-"

"I just never thought people would think that I - but especially someone who's my friend, who feels like family," he says, more to himself than her, roughly working a hand through his hair and staring down at the espresso machine that hasn't seen much attention from her in recent years. "How could he think I'd leave you? Our daughter? Since when have I ever been a deadbeat-"

"Rick." She silences him before the tenor of his voice can rise any higher, stepping in closer to curl her fingers at his hips, using the familiar anchor of her touch to her advantage. "I'm not excusing Esposito's behavior, I'm honestly still resisting the urge to go punch him in the face," she mutters, smirking ruefully at his startled huff of laughter. "But I think he's just angry at the situation, at… what he saw me go through, and it's easier for him to blame you, especially when there's no concrete evidence for him to rely on."

Castle nods reluctantly, but his gaze falls to the surface of the table. The hurt of those accusations remains, still so prominent and bleeding in his eyes, and Kate eases her fingers to the small of his back. He glances down at her in question when she untucks the navy fabric of his button down, slips her fingers beneath, his throat bobbing as her hands splay across the middle of his back, over the worst of his scars.

"I know you," she states with conviction, sweeping her gaze over his face as she brushes her thumbs over the rod of his spine. "And I know that you would never willingly disappear, that this-" She smooths her hands up to his shoulder blades. "Could never be faked. Everyone who matters knows it."

"Esposito doesn't," he grumbles, his lips forming a pout.

"Yeah, well, screw Esposito," she proclaims under her breath, guiding her hands back down to his waist, and he grunts.

"Better not."

A breath of laughter bubbles past her lips and she buries it against his cheek.

"Okay," she chuckles, works to tuck his shirt back into the waistband of his slacks. He's all dressed up today, reminding her of the years when they used to work together, when everything felt so normal and easy. When planning a stupid wedding was the worst of their problems. "Let's go. I promised Lanie I'd take you by the morgue before your physical therapy appointment."

"Can we get coffee on the way?" he asks, grazing his knuckles once to the base of her spine before she can finish adjusting his shirt.

She takes a step back, straightens her own blouse. "Sure, I owe her one of those too."

Kate loops her arm through his and walks with him out of the break room, remaining on his right, a barrier between him and Esposito's glare. Today is one of her days off and she nods her goodbye to Gates through her captain's office window while the other woman is on the phone, sends Ryan a strained smile. She averts her eyes from Espo, manages to corral Castle into the elevator before he notices. But she thinks he's avoiding looking in Esposito's direction as well and it makes her chest ache.

He has enough shame, enough guilt. He doesn't need anyone else adding to it.

"Lanie will be excited to see you," she tells him with a quirk of her lips, leaning into his side as the doors slide shut. "She still wants to kill us both for making her diet so hard to fit into that bridesmaid's dress, but she's just as glad that you're back."

Castle turns his head, presses a kiss to her temple, his lips spreading with a gentle smile. "Thanks, Kate."

She tugs on his arm as the lift stops on the lobby floor, drawing him out of the elevator with her. He has nothing to thank her for, but she returns his smile nonetheless, fits her fingers into the crook of his elbow as they step outside and he instinctively huddles a little closer.

"Anytime."


	14. Chapter 14

After the interview with Stephens, going over every single detail he can remember from his time away, he should have been prepared for the high risk of nightmares and return of memories that night. After his physical therapy appointment that followed their visit with Lanie awoke all of his injuries to dance with pain along his flesh, he should have known to expect the inevitable.

The dreams he's dealt tonight are different though. Rather than the crack of a whip to his back, the throbbing of his shoulders as his arms are extended above his head for too long, and Tyson's malicious grin flashing behind his eyes, he dreams of being in the back of a car. He dreams of the black sedan that drove him off the road, of the two voices he could hear, a male and a female. Tyson and Nieman.

 _"I have a place near the water, perfect for this. Used to belong to my father, but I had it… renovated to fit my tastes," the woman is explaining. "Extremely secluded too. No one will find us there, not even her."_

 _"How long do you think we should keep him?" Tyson asks, his tone oddly curious, excited, and Nieman makes a noncommittal sound in response._

 _"As long as it takes to break him, to break her. That's the job, isn't it? Mutually beneficial for all."_

All?

Flashes of a forest come next, the smell of a storm, a star-filled sky over his head. The blurred crescent of the moon is above him, guiding him, and his heart is pounding to the tempo of _run, run, run_ even as the bullet slices through his side.

He jerks awake with his heart galloping in his chest, cracking his ribcage and suppressing his lungs-

"Castle." Kate is beside him, in present time, in his bed with a hand to his back. And _that's_ why he wasn't prepared for it this time. Ever since she started innocently sleeping in his bed last week, the nightmares haven't been quite as prevalent. "Breathe, Castle. You're okay."

Rick tries to follow her instruction, but the breath gets caught in his throat. He has to gasp to force it down, to refill his desiccated lungs before he rolls over in the bed, wincing as he rests his sweat dampened back to the mattress. He finds Kate lying on her side, watching him with knowing eyes, trying to suppress the concern he so easily evokes these days.

"Bad dream?" she murmurs, reaching out to comb back the flop of hair clinging to his forehead.

"Yeah," he rasps, clearing his throat and closing his eyes at her touch. "Weird one. Just listening to them talk. Running away in the woods."

"Tyson and Nieman?" she asks, letting her hand trail down to rest atop his shoulder. He represses the urge to shudder at the sound of their names in her mouth, simply forces a nod.

"They took me to a place Nieman had somewhere by the water, belonged to her father, but she - she changed it. Said it was secluded, that they needed to break me. Us," he recounts without pausing, getting it all out before it fades.

Kate shifts onto her elbow beside him. "Break us?"

"Tyson asked her how long to keep me, she said as long as it takes to break me, you. That it was mutually beneficial for all," he mutters, rubbing at his temples as a headache begins to form. "Then it all fast forwarded and I was running through woods and felt the gunshot."

Rick moves his hand to his side where the graze has continued to heal. It no longer stings so fiercely, but now, at the potential memory of its origin, the wound throbs beneath his fingertips.

"I'll text Stephens in the morning," she mumbles, and he sighs in relief. He doesn't want to have to deal with all of this tonight, at one in the morning; he really doesn't want to deal with it at all. "Hey, Castle, it's going to be okay."

He doesn't realize he's allowed his frustration to leak out onto his face, to bleed into his features for her to see.

"I just want things to be normal again," he confesses on an exhale that is far too unsteady, far too telling. But he's just so tired, exhausted by his own mind. "I want my life back."

"You're getting it back," Kate whispers, moving in closer to his side, the warmth of her body radiating onto his. Her hand rises to drape at his chest. "I know things are different, but... I'm here, Alexis is here, and your mom is getting help. I know Lily's a new addition for you, but she's here too. We'll get to the bottom of your disappearance, convict Tyson and Nieman, and we'll keep moving forward," she promises, her words soft but strong, fusing him with hope. Because from the sound of her voice alone, she really believes it and that makes all the difference. "We'll find a new normal."

Rick peels his eyes open to seek hers in the pale glow of city lights illuminating his room, blanketing her in starlight.

"Can we go on a date?"

One of her eyebrows arches, but there's amusement in the gesture, curling at the corners of her mouth.

"You know," he adds with a shrug. "As a way of working towards this new normal in the meantime."

"Smooth, Castle," she chuckles, leaning in on her elbow and dusting her lips along his brow. "But yeah, you can take me on a date."

His heart accelerates for an entirely different reason then, and even as Kate settles against him, drifts to sleep with her head pillowed by his bicep, he remains awake for a while longer, giddy over the fact that she said yes.

* * *

Kate returns to her apartment to get ready for their 'date' two days later, kind of enjoying the idea of having plans for the first time in so long, a 'normal' Friday night out that didn't center around being a mom.

The fact that it's a night out with Castle makes it all the more thrilling.

Alexis promptly offered to watch Lily the moment Castle told her of their plans and Lanie helped Kate shop for a new dress the day before, because even though she has a few in her closet that Castle hasn't seen, Tom has, and she wants this night to feel unmarred by the last six years.

She doesn't want to think about Tyson and Nieman and the nightmares they've inflicted upon Rick, about Agent Stephens currently digging up anything he can find on the pair, to locate evidence of that property by the water Rick mentioned. She doesn't want to think about her failed marriage to Tom and the papers that showed up on her desk that morning citing irreconcilable differences.

She doesn't want to think about anything except how excited Castle has been since she casually accepted his suggestion of a date while in his bed two nights ago, how the long dormant flutter in her stomach has returned and has her lips threatening to split into a stupid smile as she puts the finishing touches on her makeup for the night.

Kate runs her fingers through the loose curls of her hair, eyeing the honey colored highlights she had done during yesterday's shopping trip with Lanie. Castle hasn't seen her yet, isn't expecting the change from dark brown, but she thinks he'll like it as much as she does. The familiar style has her feeling younger, like the happier version of herself that once existed so easily with him. A part of her she was certain disappeared with him too, only making reappearances for Lily's sake.

"You look _so_ pretty, Momma," her daughter gushes from atop Kate's bed, laid out on her stomach with her legs kicking back and forth behind her.

"Thank you, Peanut," Kate chuckles, adjusting the v neck of the deep purple dress, tucking the chain holding her ring just below the dip of fabric that barely covers her old bullet scar. The damaged flesh isn't noticeable to anyone but her anymore. Probably to him as well.

Yeah, she's sure Castle would spot it in a heartbeat even though it's nothing more than a slight discoloration against her skin now.

A knock on the door has Lily sitting up in the bed, meeting Kate's eyes in the mirror. She sighs to ignore the butterflies stirring up a storm now, smothers her grin at Lily's enthusiasm.

"Go ahead."

Lily bounces from the bed, skipping for the front door while Kate eases a second earring into place. She critically assesses her makeup once more as she steps into the tall, matching purple stilettos Lanie convinced her to splurge on.

She can hear the low rumble of Castle's voice in the foyer now, talking to Lily, and it's utterly ridiculous how nervous she feels, as if this really _is_ their first date. She was on the verge of marrying this man six years ago, would probably still be married to him now if she's being honest with herself. They would have celebrated six years together just a few weeks ago. And even now, after everything, she shares his bed, comforts him after nightmares, kissed him here just a few nights ago in the bathroom she currently stands in. There's no reason to be nervous and yet the butterflies migrating to perch along the lattice of her ribcage say otherwise.

But it isn't a bad thing. No, the sensation tickled, hummed pleasantly through her chest, and she turns away from the mirror with a deep breath.

"See, look," Lily whispers, intercepting Kate in the bedroom doorway with Alexis's hand in hers, dragging her older sister along until they nearly bump into her.

"Oh, wow, Kate," Alexis expels on a breath, her blue eyes sweeping over the dress, lingering on her hair.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Lily drawls, swaying into Alexis's side with a wistful sigh, and Kate rolls her eyes at her daughter's theatrics.

"Stunning," Alexis confirms with a bright smile, looking so very pleased. It infuses Kate with a familiar surge of relief. Even after all these years, it's still so good to have his daughter's support, her approval, to have created this unbreakable bond with the younger woman that she never would have fathomed before. "Dad's going to be left totally speechless."

A blush threatens to creep up her throat, onto her cheeks, and she tucks a stray curl behind her ear. "Yeah?"

"Kate." Alexis narrows her gaze. "He already looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars. He always has."

Kate hooks an arm around Alexis's shoulders at that, murmurs a 'thank you' into her hair, and brushes a hand through Lily's before she nudges them both forward.

"Come on, we all know how well your dad does with waiting."

"I heard that," Castle calls from her living room. "And I think I happen to be excellent with waiting. Not to mention you're always…" His sentence trails as she finally walks into the room, her smile blooming at the sight of him in her favorite purple button down. Because, of course, they would match without even trying. "Worth waiting for," he gets out on a breath, his eyes like sapphires, riveted to her, and it's been so long since she's felt this beautiful, this wanted.

"Looking pretty good yourself, Castle," she murmurs, unabashedly scaling her gaze along the suit jacket that sits so well on his shoulders. It frames the breadth of his chest and hides the narrowness of his hips that she and Alexis have been working hard in the kitchen to rid him of.

"Dad," Alexis murmurs, an amused expression claiming her face. "Reservation."

"Oh, yes, we should-" He gestures towards the door and Kate tears her eyes away from him to find Lily watching with a mischievous grin.

"Hey," she calls, bending to Lily's height when she trots over. Kate cups one of her daughter's cheeks in her palm, taps her thumb to the corner of Lily's upturned lips. "Be good for Alexis. No negotiating bedtimes or late night coloring sessions, got it?"

"Yes, Momma," Lily sighs, but she embraces her mother's waist when Kate wraps her in a snug embrace.

"Love you," she adds with a kiss to the top of Lily's head before rising to reach for Alexis, trading kids with Castle. "And thank you."

"Anytime. No better way to unwind on my night off than with the munchkin and a Harry Potter movie marathon," Alexis winks, giving Kate a firm squeeze.

As she withdraws from Alexis, she catches sight of Castle spinning Lily around in a hug, eliciting a string of giggles even as Lily hugs him back. Her heart swells as their daughter buries her face in his shoulder, tightens her fingers in his jacket before he puts her down.

"See you guys later," Castle announces after he's deposited Lily to the sofa with one last kiss to the top of her head.

He follows Kate to the door, stealing her coat from her fingers when she retrieves it from the closet.

He holds it up at her back, his fingertips grazing along her nape as she slides her arms through. He takes his time adjusting the fabric so she can flip her hair over the collar, rivulets of heat dripping down her vertebrae as his hands linger for a second longer.

"Have fun, you two," Alexis sing-songs from the couch, a knowing smirk on her lips.

Castle returns his hands to his sides and opens the front door.

Lily rises to her knees on the sofa, waves to them both as they step out into the hall.

"Yeah, have fun!" their daughter chimes in.

"You too," Kate calls back with a grin before Rick can close the door.

Once they're finally standing on the other side, alone in the hallway, he meets her eyes with an almost nervous smile lacing along his lips.

"Ready?"

"Yeah," she murmurs, leaning into the comfortable but maddening weight of the hand he places to the small of her back.

They walk down the hallway side by side, but she steals his fingers from her spine once they're in the elevator. His palm is slightly sweaty and she almost wants to tease him for it, but the warmth of his hand seeping into the skin of hers is too welcome and she doesn't want to risk him withdrawing it.

She leans into his side while the lift descends instead, briefly touching her head to his shoulder and squeezing his hand a little tighter.


	15. Chapter 15

Dinner at the small Italian place in SoHo goes even better than he dared to hope for. The food is good, the wine rich, and Kate's heel against his calf is the most wonderful distraction. The best part, though, is how normal it feels, how easily the conversation comes, as if it's just another one of their typical date nights.

They talk about the girls, about his mother and Kate's father whom he has yet to see, about small glimpses into the last six years that don't hurt so much. He enjoys hearing about the single semester of ballet class Lily was enrolled in when she was four, laughing at Kate's recollection of how she was called into the studio twice because their daughter favored the bar as a gymnastics tool far too much. He's captivated by the surprising stories of she and Alexis having sleepovers in Kate's apartment while Kate was pregnant. But Alexis's insistence that Kate shouldn't be alone when she was so close to the due date, her need to be there for the drive to the hospital, sound about right.

It all leaves a pang of guilt and wanting in his gut. But the relief of witnessing Kate speak of times when he wasn't around without that haunted look spilling onto her face is far greater.

They've just finished a shared dessert of chocolate cheesecake when she signals the waiter, pays the bill before he can. Shushing his arguments with a roll of her eyes she leads him out of the restaurant to walk off the full meal, Kate's hand snug in his. He's about to suggest that they find a coffee shop when Kate's phone buzzes from the clutch of her purse. His immediate thought is work, even though her schedule is more lenient since becoming a mother. She has the night off, only brought her phone for one reason tonight.

"It's Alexis," she announces, scanning over the text quickly and reading it aloud to him. "They went back to the loft to watch their marathon on the projector screen, but when Lily fell asleep, she had a nightmare, and now she wants her dad."

"Me?" he whispers, earning a quizzical look from Kate that turns soft as they pick up their pace.

"Yeah, Castle, you," she murmurs, squeezing his arm.

It isn't a far walk to his loft since they're in the same neighborhood, but they hail a cab to cut the time in half, and then rush into the elevator side by side. He can hear the muffled sounds of crying from Lily's bedroom as soon as they step inside the loft. Kate nudges him on ahead of her, encourages him be the first thing Lily sees as he jogs up the stairs.

Her door is open and when he spills into the room, he sees Alexis sitting on the bed with her, rocking her sister back and forth as Lily weeps quietly into her neck.

"Hey, hey, look who's here," Alexis calls softly once she notices Castle in the doorway. She shifts out of the way as Lily spares a look upwards to see him, immediately reaching for him as he takes a seat on her bed.

"Daddy," she chokes out, wrapping her arms tight around his neck. Castle hauls her into his lap, resumes the soothing back and forth sway Alexis put into motion. "You were gone - you were gone and you didn't come back."

Alexis squeezes his shoulder as she slips from the bed, quietly disappears from the room. Castle strokes his fingers through Lily's hair like he's seen Kate do so many times, already feels Lily begin to calm against him.

"I'm right here," he promises, cradling the huddle of her body to his chest. "Your mom and I were just down the street having dinner, remember? But we came back, we're home now."

Lily nods against him, drops her cheek to his collarbone.

"It was so real. We were looking for you, like in my other dreams," Lily explains, rubbing at one of her eyes. "And we never found you in those either, but this time… I never had you then, now I do and I don't want you to leave."

Shit, she's breaking his heart all over again.

"Just a dream, sweetheart," he promises, cuddling her closer to his chest and propping his chin atop her head. "I'm not going anywhere."

He stays with her until the tears on her cheeks have dried and he's coaxed at least one sleepy giggle from her lips. She eventually crawls from his lap to lie back down, her small body curled to face him, and he adjusts his back against the headboard, acquiesces her request for a story.

"Tell me one about you and Mommy," she yawns, her eyes already struggling to stay open.

"But your mom already told you all of our stories," he points out, sure that Kate's gone over every extraordinary, near-death and life-saving moment.

"Tell me when you knew Momma was your always," she suggests, pillowing her cheek atop one of her hands.

Huh, okay. He can do that.

"Okay," he nods, getting a little more comfortable and allowing his mind to wander back in time. Before Kate was ever his, before she would have even fathomed the idea of giving him a chance. "Well, I won't lie, I was kind of head over heels for her from the first day I met her."

"She said never to believe you if you said it was love at first sight because you annoyed her too much in the beginning," Lily mumbles, but her lips quirk with amusement when he huffs at that.

"Fine, she's probably right about that part," he concedes. "But I definitely wanted to know her, to be a part of her life, and I always had a huge crush on her for sure."

"But when did you know you _loved_ her," Lily questions, giggling as Castle muffles the last of her sentence with a hand over her mouth.

"You're just as impatient as your mom. I'm trying to tell a story here," he grouses, lifting his hand and ruffling her hair before he folds it back into his lap, waiting until she's settled with a contented sigh once more. "I think I knew with certainty that I loved your mom when her apartment blew up. Did she tell you about that one?"

"Yeah," Lily yawns, shifting to snag her stuffed elephant from her opposite side and cuddling it to her chest. "She said you came to save her even though her apartment was on fire."

The smile tugs at the corner of his mouth; he knows she usually hates to call that one a save because he often inevitably brings up how he caught a glimpse of her chest amidst the chaos.

"Yeah and after that, she came to live here for a little while, in this very room actually, and she doesn't know this part," he confesses with a quiet chuckle. "But I used to check on her almost every night, just to be sure she was okay. And I think that's when I started to realize that I might be falling in love with her. I almost lost her and then to have her stay here… I just never wanted her to leave. I wanted to be with her all the time."

Lily's drifting, he can tell, but she smiles sleepily at his answer, presses her cheek to her elephant's soft fur.

"You shoulda told her then," Lily slurs.

Castle hums, brushes the hair back from her cheek and watches her eyes flutter shut. "Maybe, but I like how our story turned out. Besides, I had some growing up to do, didn't deserve her then."

Lily hums, but doesn't reply, her breathing beginning to even out. Castle watches her, takes a moment to rest his head against the wall.

"Though, taking her to the Hamptons back then could have been a lot of fun," he muses in a low murmur. His own mention of the beach sparks a yearning in his chest for the solitude of his oceanside home, for the scent of the sea breeze in Kate's hair and the taste of the sun on her golden skin, for the sight of Lily frolicking on the beach and Alexis swimming laps in the pool.

Kate _has_ mentioned that Lily only has a couple weeks of school left before summer break, maybe they can all drive up to the Hamptons, escape the city and retreat to a place untouched by bad memories and pain.

He glances down to Lily, seemingly fast asleep, her face cleansed of nightmares and finally at peace. Rick slips silently from the bed, bends to brush a kiss to her temple before he tiptoes out of her room.

"Love you, Peanut," he whispers, thoughtlessly using Kate's nickname for the girl, watching her arm tighten ever so slightly around her elephant, fingers twitching.

"Love you, Daddy," she breathes, her eyes failing to open.

His heart clenches.

Tonight is the first time she's ever called him 'Daddy', has actually told him she loves him without Kate around.

Rick closes her door without making a sound and rests his back against it for a long second, lets the smile lace along his lips. He can't wait to tell Kate.

* * *

Kate tiptoes back to the stairs when Castle and Lily both eventually go quiet inside the bedroom, hurrying down the steps before Castle can emerge and catch her listening in. Not that she meant to. She only went up to check on them, didn't expect to hear Castle telling Lily when and how he knew he was in love with her all those years ago, sharing a piece of their story with their daughter that Kate herself didn't even known about.

The soft sound of footsteps coming down the stairs only a few short minutes later has her quickly disassembling the coffee machine, doing her best to appear busy. She waits until she senses his presence in the kitchen to lift her head.

He looks so lovely in the gentle light of the loft with that hint of wonder in his eyes.

"Hey, is she okay?"

"Yep, sleeping soundly again," he assures her, glancing to the living room, back towards the stairs. "Did Alexis head to bed too?"

"Ah, no," Kate chuckles, chewing on her lip at the curious glimmer in his eyes as they swing back to her. "Well, she has this friend who's also an agent on her team and they had plans tonight that she cancelled for Lily-"

"And by friend, you mean…" He swallows hard. "A boy?"

Kate rolls her eyes, abandons the coffeemaker to drift towards him, pacifying him with a pat of her hand to his cheek. "His name is Michael and I've met him. Good guy."

"But-"

"And she's twenty-six years old, Castle," she reminds him, stroking her thumb along his jaw, his chin. "And so responsible, I promise you."

He sighs, catches the pad of her thumb with the pucker of his lips, a fleeting scrape of his teeth that has her insides simmering.

"Oh, but guess what," Castle whispers, curling his fingers around her wrist and drawing their hands to his chest. "Lily called me 'Daddy' for the first time, she actually called me that, Kate. And she told me she loved me."

She already knows, heard the words outside Lily's door, but her heart still melts at the look on his face, the awe and pride of being loved by the daughter who has only known him for a few weeks, and her smile breaks open along with her chest.

"It was only a matter of time," she grins, fingering the lapel of his jacket, resisting the urge to toy with the top button of his shirt.

She moves to take a step back, doesn't want to rush anything with him, but Castle catches her hand. He trails his palm up the path of her arm until he can cup her shoulder, stroke his thumb to the uncovered edge of bone.

"Castle," she murmurs, her eyes flickering to his mouth without her consent.

She just... _wants_ him so badly, is tired of trying to quell the need that spikes every time he's around. A sensation that has only been growing, making the process of sharing a bed all the more difficult lately. Castle seems to sense the desire building through her blood, his eyes mimicking hers, trailing down to her mouth, some of the tenderness fading.

"Kate." Her name is a husk in his mouth, laden with the same desperation she feels thrumming through her veins, and she leans in closer, her breasts brushing his chest.

But he hesitates, just as she feared.

"Castle?" she murmurs, keeping hold of his jacket, keeping him within arm's length, but failing to truly understand the trepidation tugging at the lines of his face. He's made no secret of wanting her since he came back. Hell, he has her lingerie stored somewhere in his bedroom. He wouldn't have just changed his mind… would he?

"I'm - it's just there's… it's stupid, but something Tyson said," he confesses, pursing his lips.

Okay, not the exact time she wants to hear about the serial killer who kidnapped him, but she nods, waits for him to continue.

"I think he and Nieman let me escape."

"Let you?" she echoes, her brow furrowing deep. "Why would they ever-"

"I don't know, I've been wracking my brain since it popped into my head the other night. All I know is that I don't think it happened how they wanted it to. I don't think I escaped according to whatever schedule they may have had," he sighs, pressing the heel of his palm to his eye socket for a moment before dropping his hand to her waist. When he meets her gaze, it's with a flare of shame she doesn't understand. "The only reason I'm bringing this up now is because I… I overheard them discussing it once. I don't know how, where I was or why they were with me when I was always locked up, but - the clearest thing I heard, that I remember Tyson saying, is that you wouldn't be a problem anymore, that _we_ wouldn't. That even if I made my way back, you would never want someone so damaged, on the inside and - well, the outside."

"No," she argues immediately, firmly, lifting her other hand to snag in his jacket when he shifts as if to move away from her. "No, Castle, we talked about this-"

"I know, I know," he placates, his hand squeezing at her hip. "And I know insecurity really isn't my thing, I just-"

"Rick," she gets out, a little sharper than she intended, but it manages to hook his attention, bring his trepidatious eyes back to her. "Do you know what Tyson and Nieman underestimated?"

He shakes his head, but he looks hopeful, desperate for her to prove him wrong. And she can, she will.

"I don't think anyone could ever comprehend how much I love you," she murmurs, holding his gaze and leaving hers unguarded, letting him seek there whatever reassurance he may need to find. "You told me they wanted to break you and maybe hearing those kinds of things for six years, having Tyson purposely planting them in your head, did. To an extent."

Kate relocates her hands to his neck, the warm skin of his throat, and grazes her thumbs along the hinges of his jaw. She allows her eyes to follow the work of her fingers, linger along the faded scar on his chin, the fullness of his lips.

She stepped out of her heels at the door and the slight difference in their height has Castle leaning in, their noses brushing and the heat of his breath blooming across her lips. Threading her fingers through his hair, she cradles the back of his skull, lets her eyes seek his.

It's so close, so intimate, that she only has to whisper the words.

"But I can prove them wrong."

She flicks her gaze down to his mouth once more, but he's already pressing his lips to hers, a warm caress of a kiss that blooms with heat as she arches onto her toes, opens her mouth. The stroke of his tongue spills fire through her veins, upsets the stability of her knees, and has her sinking deeper into him.

She loses her breath as his hands scale her thighs, slip beneath the skirt of her dress to cup her ass and hoist her up. Kate's legs band around him with ease, welcoming the proximity and rocking into the cradle of his hips, gasping at the sensation, relishing in the sound of his groan.

"Bed?" he breathes, the solid wall of his chest thrumming with the drumbeat of his heart beneath hers.

She nods, tries to quell the urge to undulate against him and so throw off the precarious balance of their bodies as he starts to walk them towards the study.

The roam of his hands beneath her dress isn't helping, taking advantage of the firm grip her thighs have around his hips and palming the taut muscles of her ass, hooking a thumb in the waistband of lace just below her hipbone. She can't help the way she curls around him, her body like a cove, protective and sure, but her heart is a wild thing in the cage of her ribs. Raw and desperate and so badly wanting, straining towards him.

They nearly crash into a bookshelf once they make it inside his office. She catches his grunt of surprise with her teeth, unable to cease in her unrelenting quest for his mouth after so long without it. She almost asks for him to just lower her to his desk, the coil of heat in her abdomen indomitable, the beat of her heart too frantic, but Castle is determined, securing his hold on her body and striding into the bedroom.

He's firmly in control when he spins them, slamming the door shut with the press of her spine to the hard surface. Her spine arches, her head falling back with a thud, and Castle's lips skim along the bone of her jaw, trailing fire down the column of her neck, his tongue clever and warm and oh so welcome over her flesh.

He drags a moan from her throat and she shoves the jacket from his shoulders, desperate for the touch of skin beneath her hands. Her fingers fumble, trip, but she manages to slide a few buttons of his shirt out of place as he lets her go to shrug the suit from his arms. The lack of his grip causes her to slip, aligning their bodies a little too perfectly, the muscle of his thigh catching between her legs. She mewls, grinds down.

"Kate," he chokes out, the heated gasp of her name staining her jaw. Her name on his tongue feeds the sparks of need spreading across every inch of her skin, soaking into her bloodstream.

His thigh flexes beneath her and she buries a sound that is too close to a sob in his shoulder. His muscles are toned, stronger after just a few weeks of physical therapy, a vast improvement from the near atrophied state they were in upon his return. Her body yearns to just grind down, ride his thigh and the glorious friction. She damn well knows Castle would let her, encourage her release, but she wants all of him. She wants to feel him fall apart with her.

And it will be oh so worth the wait, she knows that from experience. This isn't their first time, but Castle still explores as if it is, his lips traveling to the bared skin of her shoulder where the strap of her dress has fallen, venturing along the jut of her collarbone, the slope of a breast.

"Rick," she breathes, fisting her fingers in the collar of his button down, refusing to whimper, not yet. But - oh, god, soon. "Please."

He sucks in a breath that trembles and draws her away from the door. Carrying her through those final steps to the bed, he follows the descent of her body with hands that skim along her sides, dance across the undersides of her breasts.

A pleasant flicker of deja vu plays in the back of her mind, memories of their first night, the tender touch of his hands, the needful press of his mouth and the shy but skillful slide of his tongue. The way he worshipped her body with an ardency she never knew before him. That same intention flares gold in his eyes as he hovers above her now. Of course, she's known all along that he would give nothing less, give her everything, and her chest is already burning with emotion, with impatience and unshed tears.

Her eyes slip shut without warning when he presses a kiss to her sternum, laves his tongue over the faint evidence of her bullet wound. A keening noise breaks past her lips as he lingers, adores her scar with his mouth. One of her legs twins around his waist, her hips rolling into his, the fire in her blood beginning to unfurl and intensify with every sweep of his fingers and graze of his mouth.

She helps him in the process of removing her dress, squirming free of the fabric and bowing her spine as he slowly - god, far too slowly - drags the zipper down her back, branding each knob of her vertebrae with the whorls of his fingertips.

She shimmies her hips once the material is finally past her torso, watches him drop her dress over the edge of the bed.

The chain around her neck slips out of place without the fabric, has nowhere to hide, and Castle pauses above her. He follows the line of gold with his fingers to the scarred space between her breasts that glitters with the jewel of an engagement ring.

"You kept it," he rasps, brushing his thumb over the subtle set of diamonds, the band of platinum, looking so surprised and relieved and almost childlike with the wonder that breaches the seas of arousal overtaking his gaze. "It - it wasn't in the drawer and I wasn't sure if-"

"I never took it off," she explains, hopefully dispelling the last of his doubts.

"I - but you were... even while you and Demming-"

"He was never you." She bites her lip, averts her eyes to the ceiling and breathes past the swell of guilt that rises so naturally in her chest. "It was one foot out the door all over again, caring about him but hoping there was a chance you would come back. 'Competing with a ghost', he called it."

Her gaze reluctantly trails back to him and she can't help lifting a hand to his cheek, touching her fingers to the frown on his lips.

"There's only ever been you, Castle. Whether you came back or not," she confesses softly, swallowing hard. "But I understand if you need more time-"

"No, I - no more time," he whispers, leaning in to press a fleeting kiss to her mouth, his knuckles grazing the bones between her breasts as his grip on the ring tightens.

Her hand slips down his jaw, fingers caressing his chin, before she covers his hand with hers at her chest.

"I wasn't giving it up, Castle," she murmurs, easing onto her elbow to aid him in drawing the necklace over her head. He spares a moment to examine the jewelry before his eyes return to her, so reverent and trained on her face even as she sits in nothing but the matching black lace she chose with him in mind. "Wasn't giving you up."

He gingerly sets the ring and its chain on the nightstand, doesn't resist the call of her hands unbuttoning his shirt, shrugging it from his shoulders.

The kiss he drapes to her mouth is earnest and thorough, leaves her breathless. It has her pressing up into him for more, nudging him onto his back so she can straddle his hips.

He stares up at her with eyes that sweep unabashedly over her frame, awe and arousal swirling together, while his hands map her newly exposed flesh with unhurried adoration.

"I love you," he murmurs, so simple, so much, and she can't believe she has it back, can have him back.

"I know," she whispers, stealing his hands from her sides to interlace their fingers. She rests their sealed palms over his head as she leans in to kiss his mouth, painting a prayer against his lips, stroking rapture along his tongue. "Love you too. Never stopped."

* * *

 **A/N: Please be aware that chapter sixteen will be rated M, but the T rating will return for chapter seventeen.**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Friendly reminder that this chapter is rated M.**

* * *

 _He stares up at her with eyes that sweep unabashedly over her frame, awe and arousal swirling together, while his hands map her newly exposed flesh with unhurried adoration._

 _"I love you," he murmurs, so simple, so much, and she can't believe she has it back, can have him back._

 _"I know," she whispers, stealing his hands from her sides to interlace their fingers. She rests their sealed palms over his head as she leans in to kiss his mouth, painting a prayer against his lips, stroking rapture along his tongue. "Love you too. Never stopped."_

* * *

Castle tightens the embrace of their fingers at her words, growls at the grind of her hips in his lap and the glide of her tongue in his mouth. He may not remember the entirety of his six years without her, but his body does. He won't survive much longer. Won't survive the night if she continues to move like that.

He squeezes her hands once in warning before he rolls them over, catching her gasp with his teeth. He sucks her bottom lip into his mouth, tending to the flesh with his tongue while his hands part with hers to coast along the expanding branches of her ribs, climbing to the hills of her breasts.

A moan hums in the back of her throat when he covers the swell of black lace with one of his palms. He hooks his thumb beneath the material to sweep across her nipple, earning a harsh jerk of her hips. He follows the path of his hands with his mouth despite her whine of impatience, his lips quirking at that familiar sound of disapproval. But she obediently arcs her spine when his hands span her back, unhook the clasp of her bra.

The black lace falls over the edge of the bed and he covers the tip of a breast with his mouth.

"Castle," she gasps, one of her hands instantly flying to his hair, scoring his scalp with her nails.

He hums, laves her nipple with his tongue, attends to the other with the brush of his thumb.

He could do this all night, worship her chest, make her come from the work of his mouth and the caress of his hands alone, but she's writhing restlessly beneath him, on the verge of begging.

"Come back. Up here," she gets out, her chest rising and falling rapidly. He drifts to the middle of her sternum just to feel the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat beneath his lips.

"Not yet," he murmurs, his words whispering against her scar. "I've missed you, everything about you, and I want to rediscover every inch."

A guttural noise snags in her throat, a catch between a whine and a moan, and Kate snakes one of her legs around his waist, drags the weight of his lower body into hers.

"You think I don't want the same thing?" she husks, her eyes on fire when he lifts his gaze, finds her staring down at him.

"This first," he murmurs, scraping his cheek, the light layer of stubble, to the sensitive swell of flesh before he pays homage to her opposite breast. He sucks her nipple to the roof of his mouth, presses his thumb hard to the other and circles in the way that used to drive her crazy. Just to hear her cry out.

She doesn't disappoint.

Castle finally abandons her breast to continue down the line of her body, lips caressing the rungs of her ribs that stutter with every glance of his mouth. His teeth nip at her belly button, snag in the waistband of her underwear.

Her hips lift from the bed when he eases the matching lace down her legs. She squirms, her body restless beneath the pin of his hands bracketing her waist. In response, he skims his lips along her abdomen, feeling the muscles jerk and contract beneath his tongue. She's panting beneath the ministrations of his touch, her lower body quivering in anticipation, and her hips bucking at the nuzzle of his nose to the soft skin where her hip meets her thigh.

"Fuck, Rick, _please_ ," she gets out and he can't help smirking.

He scrapes his teeth against her thigh before finally brushing his lips between her legs. Her entire body jolts, spine arcing from the mattress.

A sob breaches her lips, her breath hitching with it.

He strokes his tongue through her folds. Her hand clenches in his hair, the other clinging to the sheets, and all it takes is the suckle of his mouth to her clit to have her shattering.

He almost forgot how strikingly beautiful it is to witness Kate Beckett fall apart.

* * *

Castle is journeying up the length of her body when she opens her eyes, brushing gentle kisses to her skin that still cause her sensitive flesh to shiver. She hums as he reaches her mouth, the taste of her still on his tongue, and her eyes slide open once he pulls away. He's resting above her on his elbows, his gaze dark and shimmering and so deeply in love with her. It never fails to take her breath away.

"You okay?" he murmurs. His body draped alongside hers, frissons of pleasure still rippling through her bloodstream from every point of contact.

Kate hums, words not her forte at the moment, her mouth curling into a smile. "Better than I remembered."

"Just from that, huh?" he teases, looking amused and a little proud too, but his expression is so tender, adoring, and she rolls her eyes, shifts her body closer to seal against the front of his.

"Castle," she groans, rocking her hips into his, feeling the thick length of him trapped between their abdomens, hot and hard, even through his clothing. "You're still wearing pants."

He huffs into her hair before pushing up from his elbows; she already rid him of his belt somewhere in between their transition from the door to the bed, so it doesn't take long for him to shove the slacks from his hips, his boxers going too. Then, finally, he's lying naked above her, so much of their bodies already aligned.

Kate arches to kiss his mouth, cradling his jaw in her palm. She feels the bone working against her fingers as she parts her lips, hums around the stroke of his tongue, matching the rhythm of her hips to his slow glide.

He falters for a split second when her other hand scales along his side. She ventures along the plains of his back, the rough terrain of raised flesh beneath her fingertips.

"Rick," she whispers, sweeping her hand up to the plate of his shoulder blade, splaying her palm there. She closes her eyes when he presses his forehead to hers, their noses clashing as their lips graze. "Stay with me."

She tilts her chin, feathering a kiss to his mouth. Castle shudders out a breath, his lashes fluttering like butterfly wings against her cheeks.

It's all so delicate.

"I'm with you," he murmurs, his body sinking deeper into hers, every inch of her exalting at the weight. Her thighs spread wider, embracing him. "Always with you."

Castle's hand slides into her hair, tangling in the strands as he drapes his mouth over hers. He kisses her deep and thorough and rich while his other hand trails along her outer thigh. Her legs wrap high around his waist reflexively, sense memory taking over. Because she could never forget how good they are together, no matter how hard she sometimes tried.

She slips a hand between them. He chokes out her name as she caresses him with her fingers. She curls her hand around the solid heat of him - before she guides him home.

* * *

Kate releases a whimper, soft and breathless, when he slides inside of her. So effortless and deep, her entire body curling around him as their stomachs brush and their hipbones kiss. He has to take a second to breathe, resting momentarily with his lips to her neck, painting his mouth there, his tongue, the moment he can spare the oxygen. It causes her to arch, managing to take him even deeper, rob him of air all over again.

"I missed you inside of me," she breathes, rolling her hips, earning a barely controlled thrust in response. He curses into the warmth of her neck, licks the salt from her skin.

"Not gonna last if you say stuff like that," he rasps, following the column of her throat back to the haven of her mouth, catching her bottom lip between his teeth.

"It's true. God, I missed you, I love you," she gasps, her arms wrapping so tightly around him as he withdraws, plunges back in. Her body clutches him with every thrust, so snug and wet and velvet with heat that he just wants to bury himself inside of her, never stop.

His fingers curl around the back of her knee, slick with sweat, and hitch her leg higher at his hip. He hears her whimper into his neck while he tries to blink past the white spots dancing like stars ready to combust through his vision, the heat spreading so fiercely from where they're joined. And he just wants to be closer, wants more, the need building with fervent urgency-

Castle gasps, from both surprise and the change in angle, when Kate suddenly rolls them over. She's always able to execute that maneuver with such ease.

"Fuck, you're so good." He can't help dropping his head back into the pillow, groaning as she plants her palms to his chest. She rises and falls over him, twists her hips. He grips her thighs hard enough to bruise.

He can no longer tell where he ends and she begins, but it's still not enough. Not until he pushes up on one arm, circles the other around her waist, the friction sparking bright and intense and coaxing him to the razor's edge of release. Kate falls into him, her arms lacing around his neck, her teeth pinning her bottom lip but unable to stop the sharp moan that slips free. It slices through him like fire as she rocks in his lap, hard and needful.

"Castle," she pants, her breath hitching. He cradles her body against his, uses whatever leverage he can manage to shallowly thrusts his hips, buries the broken keening noise that escapes his mouth in the refuge of hers.

"I love you too," he murmurs, his voice dripping with it now, every nerve in his body alive with electricity on the verge of combustion. It's a miracle they made it this long. "So much, Kate. Always you, just you-"

She comes apart to the chant of his words at her cheek, crashing against the shoreline of his body. The crest of her orgasm draws him over the edge with her, into a sea of pleasure so deep he almost drowns in it, willingly succumbs to it.

When he swims back to consciousness, the ripples of release continuing to lap at his senses, Kate's body is still curled against him. Her heart is pounding a relentless rhythm against his chest and he carefully eases back to rest against the headboard.

She sighs, a contented sound, her head tucked against his jaw and the heat of her breath spilling past her lips to pool in the hollow of his throat. Castle presses his lips to the first place he can reach, whispering a kiss along the dampened skin of her forehead. He's missed this too, the molten drape of her body over his, sinking deeper with the post-orgasm looseness of her limbs, how warm and pliable she is after sex.

He combs gentle fingers through her hair while hers flutter to life at his side. They drift around to coast along his back once more, over his scars. But he doesn't tense at the touch, doesn't feel the phantom flicker of pain racing through the healed strips of tissue or the threat of a flashback at the edge of his mind, only knows the warmth of Kate's fingertips branding his skin.

"You were right," he mumbles, his voice rough but sated. Her eyebrow rises beneath his lips before she lifts her head, the dark fringe of her lashes, to see him. "Better than I remembered."

"Mm," she grins, craning her neck to paint a kiss to his mouth, dipping her tongue past his lips and stroking languidly along the roof of his mouth, making him dizzy with the intoxicating taste of her. "But we're never waiting that long to have sex again."

"No, that's a definite never," he concurs, smirking beneath her lips, grunting at the lazy rock of her hips in his lap. "Oh, Kate, not-"

"Shh, I know," she murmurs, drawing one of her hands up his side, splaying her palm over his chest, his heart. "There's no rush, Castle. We have all night."

He sweeps his hands down her sides, spans the expanding branches of her ribs with his palms as she fuses her mouth to his, stokes the embers flickering back to life in the pit of his stomach. She was right, they have the night, and he wants to take his time, relearn every inch, every sound, every glimpse of her. He never wants tonight to end.

"It doesn't," she breathes, and his brow creases before he realizes he must have spoken the thought aloud, let it slip past his lips loud enough for her to hear. Kate holds his face in her hands. "This doesn't end, Castle. We don't."

He doesn't have the words to express his recurring gratitude, his love for her. His disbelief that he's back here with her at all. His only answer is to reclaim her mouth with his own, pour everything he can't say with words into the work of his lips against hers, the devotion of his hands to her body, late into the night.


	17. Chapter 17

Castle doesn't sleep, only drifts in and out between rounds of sex with Kate, finding her awake beside him every time he floats back to the edges of consciousness. She just looks so damn happy each time he opens his eyes. Their legs are still twined beneath the sheets and her hair is a riot of golden brown waves across his pillows, her smile like a crescent moon glowing in the dimness of his bedroom.

He's almost convinced he's dreaming.

But no, he's awake.

Around 3 a.m., he surfaces to feel her fingers tracing along his back, learning the lines of his scars like the language of braille, memorizing their patterns. He's aware that Kate Beckett is no stranger to war wounds, the raised circle of flesh between her breasts, the strip of healed tissue along her side, both testaments to injuries that have left their mark on her, flaws she once shied away from. Logically, he knew better than to believe Tyson's words of her likely revulsion when she laid eyes on the trauma scattered so heavily across his body. But since he's returned, he hasn't been able to quell the annoying nag of apprehension at the idea of her seeing every inch of him exposed again, feeling his damaged flesh so intimately beneath her hands.

But while he was bowed over her, making love to her, Kate didn't hesitate to sweep her palms over his scars, to dance her fingers over the varying degrees of healed tissue. If anything, she touched the sites of his battered flesh with more care, reverence, than ever before.

He's always embraced her scars, paid tribute to them with devoted sweeps of his fingers, his mouth, never caring about the physical signs of her survival, only for the fact that she survived. Tonight, she's shown him the same treatment and it means… everything to him.

And now she's warm and sated and looking at him like she's in love with him and he no longer has a doubt in his mind.

"None of them hurt?" Her voice is soft in the darkness, her fingertips dusting along the deepest of his healed wounds, trailing from his shoulder blade to the small of his back. Castle shakes his head, studies her face in the shimmer of city lights peeking through the slits of curtains while she studies him in return.

"Most of them already feel like they're not even there anymore. There are only a few that still have sensation. Weird and tingly mostly, but not painful," he mumbles, a shiver shimmying down his spine at the continuous stroke of her fingertips.

Only she could manage to make this feel so erotic.

Kate taps her fingers to the patches of skin between the strips of scar tissue, the scarce but smooth pieces of flesh.

"The doctor said I could probably have plastic surgery done. Can't make them all disappear, but cosmetically it would look better, less noticeable."

She hums her acknowledgement, skates her index finger down his spine to where the sheet pools just below the small of his back. "Do you want plastic surgery?"

"I don't know," he answers honestly, gasping when her nails scratch along the dimples of his spine. He rolls onto his side, stealing her questing fingers as her lips spill into an amused grin. "What would you do?"

Kate shifts in closer to him, sliding her knee between both of his. He draws her forearm up to press along the middle of his sternum, watching her eyes drop to their hands and feeling her fingers curl beneath his chin.

"I don't know either," she murmurs, resting her head on his pillow, sharing space and breath. He wishes the night would never end, that he could remain wrapped up in Kate Beckett and bedsheets and moonlight for the rest of his life. "I just want you to do what makes you the most comfortable, happy."

"You'll love me for my body either way?"

She rolls her eyes and eases her leg higher between his, bites her lip as the sensitive flesh of their abdomens brush. His muscles contract at the contact and he uses his free hand to twine his fingers through her hair.

"You already know the answer to that," she smirks, craning her neck to kiss him.

Kate urges him onto his back as she languidly rocks into him, starting a lazy rhythm that ignites that pleasant hum of desire in his blood to a wildfire.

No, he won't sleep tonight. Why would he want to?

* * *

Even though it's the smell of coffee that wakes her hours later, her heart still suffers from an instinctive stutter of panic when she opens her eyes to the empty space in the bed where Castle should be. But he's been here, she can sense him, can feel his warmth still lingering in the bedsheets and see his clothes still tangled with hers on the floor.

It's still so early, barely light outside, that she's almost surprised he's up. But neither of them really sleep anymore, and after last night, she doesn't want to spend much of her time sleeping anyway.

Kate gives herself a moment in his bed, presses her face to his pillow. She savors the scent of him, his aftershave and his soap, the oil of skin and layer of sleep. The underlying hint of her shampoo is blended into the fabric too and smothers her smile there. Her body warms at the fresh memory of her head sinking into his pillow while his body pressed her down into the mattress, sunk so deeply into her.

She sighs and slips from the bed, snags his dress shirt from the night before and eases two of the buttons into place. She pads towards his office, her eyes seeking through the open shelves as the kitchen becomes visible. Her heart finally calms at the sight of him, standing in front of the coffee machine with his back to her, nothing but a pair of pajama pants hanging low on his hips.

She watches him for a long moment, propping her shoulder against the entryway of his office, studying the tap of his fingers to the buttons of the complicated machine, appreciating the stretch and bunch of muscles along his back as he hunts for a mug in the cabinet. He finally notices her eyes on him once he victoriously retrieves her favorite coffee cup, an adorable grin claiming his lips as he goes still in the middle of his kitchen.

"Hey," he murmurs, his voice still rough with sleep. His eyes are bright with the soft grey dawn of morning light - and darken to a starlit sky as he registers the sight of her in only his shirt, how it trips down the length of her legs. "I was just making you a coffee."

"Mm," she acknowledges, pushing off from the bookshelf to join him in the kitchen. She smirks at the subtle blush coloring his throat when he notices her eyes falling to his bare chest.

He's so self-conscious about his body due to the scars marring so much of his skin even after she canvassed his flesh - smooth and not - last night with her hands, her mouth. She steps into the embrace of his arms once she reaches him, skims her palms along the uneven expanse of his back. The tension tangled in his spine unwinds as she touches a kiss to the hollow of his throat, dwells there for a moment while the peace of their quiet morning blankets them.

"That's sweet," she mumbles, tilting her head upwards to dust her lips along his chin next, just shy of kissing his mouth. "But we still have maybe an hour or two before Lily wakes up and I could really go for a round four."

She relishes the choked sound of his laughter at her confession, the travel of his hand up her spine and the curve of his palm at her nape.

"Still insatiable," he muses, tracing his thumb along the tip of her vertebrae, circling at the base of her skull.

"That a bad thing?" she inquires, scraping her teeth over the hard edge of his jaw. She sucks in a breath of soft surprise when his knee slides between her thighs in a familiar gesture of both comfort and seduction.

"No." His fingers feather along the taut muscle of her outer thigh, eliciting a ripple beneath his touch. Kate shifts, winds her arms around his neck. "Not at all."

She smiles as she bites down on his bottom lip, teases the tender flesh between her teeth, and hums at the light squeeze of his fingers at her nape. She can taste the faint scent of coffee on his tongue when he traces her upper lip, coaxes her to retract her teeth and let him inside.

They used to have mornings like this all the time - flirting over coffee in his kitchen, kissing so intensely that it often turned into more, him dragging her back to bed even though she would have to leave for the precinct within the hour. It returns naturally now, so much so that she can almost forget that they've missed six years worth of those mornings.

The ache of missing him, their life together, surges up fierce and unbidden in her chest, has her arching on her toes, angling her head to kiss him deeper, a little desperate.

"Kate," he groans, tightening his grip on her thigh. He gentles her with the caress of his opposite hand along the bone of her cheek, the seal of his forehead to hers.

"Sorry," she breathes, turning her head to skim her lips to his palm. She feels his settle at her temple, not pushing, not impatient, and she closes her eyes. "I just - it's surreal sometimes, having you back like this," she admits, covering the back of his hand with her own, fitting her fingers through the spaces of his.

Castle's thumb skates along the edge of her eyebrow, his lips grazing the line of her hair. "I know," he murmurs. "It's almost like starting over. Doesn't feel completely real, even for me. This morning, I woke up half expecting to be back in that room."

Her heart clenches, her ribs indulging in that horrible feeling of caving in and crushing the battered muscle. She presses their twined hands to her lips, whispers a kiss to each of his knuckles.

"But when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was you. Then it wasn't so hard to differentiate reality from the dreams."

Shit, he's going to make her cry and he isn't even trying, hasn't even said anything tear jerking. It's just so good to have him back, to have his words in her ear, making it all okay.

"And I think the longer I'm here with you, with Lily… one day, we'll wake up and won't have to wonder anymore," he murmurs, curling an arm around her back, letting her find rest against his chest.

"I think you're right," she whispers, laying her cheek to his clavicle. Her arms band around his waist and her fingers hook in the fabric of his pants to hold on. "And I think you were right, when you said we'd find our way back. It… feels like we're almost there."

Castle holds her a little tighter, slots the bones of their ribs into place, crushing her lungs. But her body exalts at the contact, embraces it.

"I want to go see Doctor Burke," he announces after a minute, seemingly out of nowhere. But he squeezes one of her shoulders before she can pull back in question. "I want to be better, Kate. I want to be able to move forward without the last six years haunting me, without having nightmares every other night. I want to put this behind us."

Kate releases a breath against his skin before she raises her head. She meets the determination in his eyes, the resolution mingling with the outpour of love for her, and feels her lips quirk. In just a few weeks, he's come so far. She's proud of him.

"Okay. I can call him later, see if he can fit you in for an appointment this week," she murmurs, elevating onto her tiptoes to kiss his smiling mouth. "And when you're not working through it with him, you can work through it with me too, Rick. We do this together."

He just looks so damn grateful that it steals her breath for a moment.

"Thank you," he whispers, his eyes crinkling in the corners with the unwavering curve of his mouth.

She expects him to let her go after that, to return to the coffee, but Castle begins walking her backwards through the kitchen, back towards the bedroom. Kate dips her fingers beneath the waistband of his pajama pants.

"What about coffee?" She knows she doesn't really mean it.

"Later. I'll make you coffee _and_ pancakes. I'll even bake the chocolate chips into Lily's. Right now, I want to make love to you," he mumbles, sealing another kiss to her lips. "Preferably in the shower this time."

She smirks against his mouth and squeezes his backside, hastens their stumbling steps back to the bedroom.


	18. Chapter 18

Therapy goes surprisingly well.

He likes Carter Burke, can see why Kate does too. Even though this is only his first session and they've barely scratched the surface of all that's happened in the last six years, everything he yearns to work past, the psychologist makes him feel hopeful with his quiet confidence.

They spend the hour Burke graciously worked into his schedule getting comfortable with one another, exchanging introductions, briefly discussing his relationship and its recent - wonderful - developments with Kate (which is apparently very familiar territory for the therapist). They venture slowly into his encounters with Tyson and Nieman prior to his abduction, summarizing what he can remember of his time away.

Burke takes notes, but doesn't say much, listening intently and indulging Rick's anxious humor with a twitch of his lips. He shakes the other man's hand when it's time to go, then schedules another appointment for next week with the receptionist up front. He rides the elevator down to the building's lobby.

Kate is already waiting for him outside, using her lunch hour to drop him off and pick him up. He trots out to her cruiser with his chest feeling lighter, a smile tugging at his lips as he opens the door and slides into the passenger seat. But it promptly falls away at the look on her face.

"What's wrong?" he questions, watching the column of her throat work with a swallow, her skin so pale, ashen. She's already scaring him. "Beckett."

"A woman, Susan Watts, was found strangled to death this morning," she answers, her voice rough, scraped raw, and all of the hope leaks out of him. Because there's only one reason a purposeful asphyxiation would drain her face of color, sharpen her jaw and turn her knuckles white around the steering wheel. "She was blonde." Castle closes his eyes. "And street cams caught footage of Tyson leaving her apartment."

He's known it was coming, but his heart still lurches with horror, with panic, and no. No, he can't do this. He won't.

"We have to leave."

Kate's eyes finally startle over to him, her lips parting with what's sure to be a protest, but he denies it before it can come.

"We have to go away. I can't - no, I won't - _won't_ go back, Kate. I won't-"

"Castle, _no_ ," she whispers, but even as his heart is hammering, the blood is leeching out of him with every beat. He quickly searches his jacket for his phone with hands that shake so badly, he can barely feel his fingertips.

"Rick, you're not going back, you're not going anywhere," she states firmly, but he jerks when she touches him. He startles away from the gentle graze of her fingers to his neck, smacking his shoulder against the passenger door's window, and shuts his eyes once more, can't bear to see the expression that must be claiming her face. "I won't let him come anywhere near you-"

"You can't stop him," he says incredulously. He knows he's growing hysterical, can hear it in his own voice, but all he can think about, all he can see, is that room he was kept in. All he can feel is the heat of his own blood spilling down his back, the taste of copper on his tongue, and Tyson's voice, his face, and that nauseating grin. "No, he'll find a way. Him and Nieman, and - oh god, you. They'll come after you instead, or Alexis, Lily." He steals her hand from the console between them, grips her fingers probably a little too hard. "Kate, _please_."

She stares back at him with so much heartache in her eyes, a blend of concern and fear spilling through her features. But she has to understand, she has to say yes. They have to get the girls, pack up, and _go_. Run and just keep running until his captors are finally caught.

"You were right all along," he babbles on. "We'll never be safe until they're behind bars, so please just - we have to run, Kate. We can't stay here-"

"But where?" she finally gets out. "Castle, the FBI has already issued a manhunt, along with the NYPD. They're patrolling every road out of the city, every ferry and airport-"

"Exactly, they'll be trapped here and we won't," he presses, but she still doesn't look like she's completely on board with his plan yet.

"You don't think they would find a way to follow us?" she asks, her question soft, as if he's a victim she has to handle with care. He can't stop the noise of distress that gets caught in the back of his throat as he bows forward, buries his face in his hands. "Castle, look, what if we go to a safe house? Stephens mentioned it on the phone earlier, said he could spare a team of protective details."

Not as good as running away to a foreign country, but… the noose of panic around his throat reluctantly begins to loosen.

"Tyson and Nieman combined have pulled off a lot of extraordinary crimes, they're both highly intelligent and obviously capable of more than anyone has given them credit for, but when it comes down to it, they're just two human beings," she tells him, resting a tentative hand on his bad knee, allowing her palm to cover his patella when he doesn't startle or jerk beneath her touch. "And it would take someone with superhuman abilities to take you away from me again, Castle. Same goes for Lily, Alexis too. No one's touching my family."

The growl of tenacity in her words has his heart easing quicker than it could with any soothing attempts at consolation. He's still not wholly convinced that Kate is completely aware of who she's dealing with, but she does have a point. And, not to mention, Kate Beckett is as close to superhuman as it gets.

"Okay," he finally relents on the first steady breath he can manage. "A safe house."

"I'll set it up right now," she promises, her thumb smoothing over the bone of his knee. "Rick?" He lifts his head, prepared to give his agreement, but her eyes are shiny and her bottom lip is pinned, painfully white beneath her teeth. She shakes her head when he opens his mouth to ask what's wrong, to apologize for reacting so viscerally. "I'm just so sorry."

The cracks in his heart that have slowly started to heal fissure deep once more and Castle shifts in his seat to reach for her. He cups her crumpling face in one of his hands and fuses a kiss to her mouth, tasting the sorrow on her tongue, remorse in the velvet press of her lips.

"It's okay," he rasps, stroking his thumb to the paper thin skin beneath her eye, touching his lips to the tension between her brows before dropping his forehead to rest against hers. "You're right. It'll be okay. Nothing's going to take me away from you, our family. Nothing's going to happen."

He wants to believe it so badly, knows that she does too, but he doesn't think either of them can. Not anymore.

* * *

Castle accompanies her to work after his therapy session and she feels so guilty about it, about ruining whatever progress he may have made with Burke with her bearing of bad news. But there's no keeping this from him. She learned a long time ago that secrets only make things worse, that they're stronger together, and that meant keeping him in the loop. No matter how painful it is.

When Beckett and Castle return, Stephens is already stationed at the Twelfth, grave determination written all over his face. At least she has a team leader to work with who is just as serious about tracking down Tyson and Nieman as she is, who also cares about Castle's safety.

Stephens lets her know about a safe house in White Plains that's large enough for a small family and she makes arrangements to pick Lily up within the hour, contacts Alexis at work.

"Kate, I can't go," Alexis responds to Beckett's explanation of the situation in a hushed tone. "I'm working on a case of a missing nine year old girl right now and we may have a lead. If you, Dad, or Lily _need_ me, of course I'll come, but if it's my safety you're worried about, I'm protected here."

"Alexis, your dad is… I don't think he'll accept that," Kate sighs, fisting a hand in her hair as the headache pounding through her skull worsens. "You can imagine how rattled he is over all of this and I don't blame him."

Alexis is quiet for a moment, contemplative. "Let me talk to him."

Beckett purses her lips but steps out of the break room to find Castle at the murder board in front of her desk. His eyes are roaming the notes of information and theories, the photos of the latest victim, Susan Watts, the security cam footage shots of Tyson, and the connection to Castle himself.

"Rick," she calls, coming up behind him, but not touching. "Alexis wants to talk to you."

He accepts her proffered cell phone with a furrowed brow. "Pumpkin… what do you mean?"

Kate drifts a few feet away to give him some privacy, not necessarily looking forward to his reaction either, but it doesn't take long. She waits until she hears the distinctive words of 'I love you' and a goodbye minutes later before she glances back to see him lowering the phone from his ear.

"You okay?" she asks once she makes her way back to him. He holds out the phone to her with a frown that slices away at her heart.

He just wants to protect the people he loves from the monsters that practically destroyed his life. She knows Alexis isn't trying to make that harder for him, but she's not sure if Castle can see that right now. Although, he does appear reluctantly accepting of whatever was said during that phone call.

"Do you really believe she's safe there?" he inquires, lifting his troubled eyes to meet hers, and Kate nods.

"She works in a secure facility in Midtown with a multitude of other trained agents. I think it would be too big of a risk for anyone to go after her there," she answers honestly and his shoulders lose just a fraction of their tension.

"Okay," he concedes on a sigh, raking a hand through his already disheveled hair. "I - it doesn't help, but Tyson didn't talk about Alexis as much when he would threaten me. And he obviously never mentioned Lily. I'm still not sure if it's because they weren't aware of her existence or not. But it was always you he talked about."

It doesn't scare her, but the new piece of information does send a shudder down her spine. The blank expression on Castle's face, the haunt of memories in his eyes, causes her gut to churn.

"It was like he was fascinated with us," he recounts, his nostrils flaring. Kate shifts a little closer, leans back to prop against the edge of her desk next to him.

"You remembered more," she assesses, but he doesn't answer that, his jaw only squaring with confirmation.

"He enjoyed using you to torture me the most," is all he says, his voice a low growl in the back of his throat.

"He's not going to get to me, Castle," she murmurs, finally earning the flicker of his attention back to the present, to her. "Tyson knew me too, remember? Knew us. It's probably why he focused on me more."

"Maybe," he mumbles, flipping his hand atop his knee. She immediately slots her fingers through his. "After this, I want to go to the Hamptons. Has Lily ever been?"

Surprise flutters through her chest, hope, because he believes that there will be an 'after this'.

Kate remembers to shake her head in response, but leans into his side as she replies. "No, she hasn't been. I never thought to tell her about it and didn't want to - to think about it after our, uh, wedding day," she confesses, earning the turn of his head at that. But she keeps hers down, her eyes on their tangled hands, not wanting to see any unwarranted guilt she may have accidentally elicited with the information. "But I know Lily would love it there and I'd like to take her, to go back with you. Make more memories, better ones."

Castle's lips press against her temple, his nose in her hair. She squeezes his hand, rests her chin to his shoulder.

"It's a date," he murmurs, his words whispering against her forehead.

Her mouth dares to curve with the beginnings of a smile.

There will be an after this and they will be spending it in the Hamptons with their daughter. And that is what will get her through this.

* * *

After Stephens sends them confirmation that the team chosen to escort them to White Plains is on the way, Rick watches as Kate shrugs on her jacket. She checks the gun at her waist, covering the piece with her outerwear a few minutes later. It's still the early afternoon and they aren't planning to leave until nightfall, but he can already feel Kate's anxiety to get him and Lily as far away from here as possible thrumming through every inch of her frame.

"I'm going to go pick up Lily," she murmurs.

Castle rises from his place against her desk to follow, snagging his jacket as well.

"I'm coming with you," he states before she can argue. But she only sighs, as he feared, and places her hands on his shoulders, stills him.

"Castle, you have to stay here," she says, her expression pleading with him. "You're the one Tyson wants most, the one he and Nieman will be after, and you're safest here."

"So are you," he points out.

"Myself and two other officers will be accompanying her, Rick," Gates intervenes softly. The way even the captain talks to him now, with such care, almost makes him miss when she used to hate his guts. "She won't be alone and we are going to and from the school only, coming straight back here."

Kate's hand hooks at his waist, her fingers in his belt loop, and he returns his attention to her as he feels Gates backing away.

"Believe me, I don't want to split up," she admits, her knuckles pressing into the sensitive flesh below his hip. "But I don't trust anyone else to get Lily and you and I going together presents too much opportunity."

Castle averts his eyes to the ceiling, because yeah, she has a point. Wouldn't it just be Tyson's dream to have them both?

 _Would you like it if I went to grab your girl, Rick? Kel's in the city right now, has eyes on her while she's having lunch with that friend of hers from the morgue._

He can still remember grinding his teeth so hard it felt like his jaw was going to crack. He was being specifically punished at the time, being reminded of what they would do if he disobeyed, what he still had at stake.

 _There's probably enough room down there for two, I could string her up right beside you._

The words came through the speakers attached to the wall, echoing through his cell, and he's never felt such a strong confliction of fury and defeat all at once.

The thought, the recently acquired memory, makes him cringe.

"I'll come right back," she promises, her other hand ascending to catch at the collar of his shirt. Castle steals her fingers, holds them against his chest as he looks down at her.

He really doesn't want her to go.

"Okay," he croaks, clearing his throat and closing his eyes when she leans into him. "If anything happens to you, Kate-"

She arches on the toes of her heels, cuts him off with the bruising press of her mouth. Castle slides one of his hands into her hair, tangles his fingers in the strands and holds on tight until she parts from him.

"I love you," she whispers, breathing the words against the corner of his mouth, imprinting them there.

He squeezes her nape once before letting her go. "Love you too."

"I'll see you soon," she swears, nodding to Gates over his shoulder before withdrawing from him with a final sweep of her fingers to his cheek.

He releases her, even though every inch of him screams against it, and lets her stride towards the elevator with her captain, LT, and - oh, his biggest fan - Esposito.

"Don't worry, Castle," Ryan murmurs, appearing at his side with the same nervous look in his eyes that Rick feels twisting through his gut. "We're going to end this. Once and for all."

He latches onto the conviction in Ryan's voice, grateful for his confidence, hoping he's right. Hoping, but still not quite able to believe.


	19. Chapter 19

Esposito comes with her inside the school to retrieve Lily, but they don't speak. They wait wordlessly in the principal's office until her daughter is escorted inside and Kate exhales in relief.

"Momma," Lily greets with a pleased smile, skipping over with her backpack bouncing against her shoulders. "You're here early."

"I know, baby," Kate sighs, nodding her appreciation to Principal Knight before taking Lily's hand. She leads her daughter out of the office with Esposito stepping forward to flank Lily's opposite side.

"And you brought Uncle Javi!" she notes with delight, latching onto his hand with her free one.

"I begged to come," he tells Lily with a grin, even as his eyes are scanning the halls, the sidewalks once they're outside. The black suburban is parked only a few feet away along the sidewalk, steps from the building's entrance. "It's been too long since I've seen you, little chiquita."

Kate slides into the backseat first and Lily follows after her. She notices Gates and LT at the front seats while Kate buckles her into her booster seat, both offering her easy smiles and soft greetings.

"Mom," Lily murmurs as Esposito climbs in last, closing the door with a firm slam. Apprehension is invading her small frame and her anxious brown eyes lift to search her mother's face. "What's going on? Is Daddy okay?"

"Yes," Kate promises without missing a beat, wrapping an arm around Lily's shoulders. "He's waiting for us back at the station right now. We're going to go on an adventure for a couple of days, all three of us."

"But… don't you have to work?" Lily asks, her brow knitting.

"Your mom's been working so hard lately," Gates chimes in from the passenger seat, meeting Lily's curious gaze in the rearview mirror. "I thought she could use a few extra days with you and your dad."

"Oh." Lily leans into Kate's side, still not necessarily convinced, and damn, her kid is too smart for this. She can probably sense the tension filling the car, humming in Kate's bones no matter how hard she tries to quell it.

She just needs to get back to Castle, needs to have all the people she loves in one place where she can protect them, just in case-

"Hey Lily, want to hear a joke?" LT's low voice carries from the driver's seat.

Lily instantly perks up, recognizing instantly what a treat it is to have the normally solemn and silent LT speak.

Kate curls an arm around her daughter's shoulders, relaxes back against the seat with a soft sigh of relief.

"Thank god for LT," Espo mutters under his breath. Her lips quirk, echoing the sentiment as LT begins to ply Lily with knock-knock jokes.

* * *

Only when they're back inside the Twelfth does Beckett's chest finally loosen. She's carrying Lily in her arms, Esposito at her side like a bodyguard, but their stride towards the elevators is intercepted by a team of familiar faces waiting for them in the lobby.

"Aunt Rachel!" Lily squeals, squirming from Kate's hold to jump to the floor. She races up to Agent Rachel McCord with open arms and Kate can't help but grin.

She should have known.

"Hey, kiddo!" Rachel greets with her best smile, one Kate remembers as having been rare in the office. Her once-fellow agent bends to accept Lily's excited embrace. "Look at you, so grown up!"

"I know! I grew like four inches since you last saw me!"

Kate chuckles and steps up behind her six year old to loop an arm around Rachel's shoulder in a hug the other woman returns. "I owe you for coming."

"Only the best for you, Beckett," she murmurs, squeezing Kate's bicep before pulling back. "You remember Hendricks, Smith, and this is our newest agent, Franklin."

Beckett shakes hands with each agent, sharing a fist bump with Hendricks, before Gates and Esposito step forward. They go through their introductions, re-acquaintances, and start for the elevator as a group.

"How's Rick?" Rachel inquires quietly during the ride up, but Lily looks up from her place between the two of them, a bright smile on her face.

"You heard about Daddy coming home?"

"I did," Rachel nods, her blue eyes gleaming for the girl, but Beckett can read the worry in her gaze too.

"He's okay. He'll be a lot better once we have these assholes in custody," she mutters, keeping her voice low, running her fingers through Lily's hair.

"We'll get them, Kate. In the meantime, we're going to keep you and your family safe," McCord tells her with confidence. But Beckett merely purses her lips, manages a nod just as the doors slide open to the Homicide floor.

"Daddy!" Lily gasps, running out into the bullpen.

Their daughter snags Castle's gaze immediately, catches his attention with the call of his new title that has been shown excessive use all week.

"Peanut Butter Cup!" Kate hears him exclaim, catching Lily as she leaps into his arms. She smothers her smile, savors the fleeting moment of joy flickering through her at the sight.

"So not just a peanut, but now a butter cup, huh?" McCord muses.

"Couldn't stop him from turning her into a piece of candy," Kate sighs while they exit the elevator, hearing Rachel chuckle at her side.

Castle's entire body visibly exalts as he catches sight of Kate following Lily's footsteps. Beckett hooks an arm around his neck, breaths out her own exhale of gratitude against him in the middle of the bullpen.

"And you brought the cavalry?" he asks, extending his hand to McCord. "Long time no see."

"Good to have you back, Castle," Rachel returns, eliciting a genuine curve of Castle's mouth. "I owe Lily a few favors, so I'll be the head of your protective detail until… for now," she catches herself, taking Lily's listening ears into consideration.

Castle arches an eyebrow in surprise, glances over to Lily.

"You're friends with Agent McCord?" he murmurs.

She nods with a proud smile. "Yep."

"She's only six and has more connections than I ever did," he huffs, keeping Lily propped on his hip while their team migrates to the break room.

Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, Kate strategizes with her old AG team, studying the route to the safe house until she has it memorized, and going over Jerry Tyson and Kelly Nieman's history like a power point presentation. She spends an hour on the phone with Stephens as night begins to fall over the city, listening intently to the agent who has dedicated his entire afternoon to interviewing Tyson's old cellmate, Marcus Gates.

"It's not a sure thing yet, I'm heading to check it out as we speak, but Beckett, we think we may have found the place where Castle was being held," Stephens reveals and her blood runs cold, ice threading through her veins. "I'll call you the moment I have more information."

"I - yeah, please do," she manages, sucking in a deep breath to melt away some of the chill once the line disconnects. She cuts her eyes to the open blinds of the break room, where Castle sits on the couch with Lily in his lap, watching cartoons on the TV overhead.

"Beckett, we've got the van all loaded. Ready to go?" McCord asks.

Kate quickly blinks away the threatening loss of composure, nods her assent, and agrees to meet Rachel downstairs in five minutes. She raids her desk for her backup piece before she goes to retrieve Castle and Lily, strapping the gun to her ankle. Her fingers pause at her top drawer, but she reaches for the knife she keeps there, flexing her fingers around the handle before slipping it into the sheath of her holster. She notices Esposito's eyes on her when she straightens.

He offers her a solemn nod, a wordless assurance that he'll be working tirelessly here, Ryan too, and she returns the gesture with a tight-lipped smile.

When they come back from the safe house, she'll talk to with Esposito, make him fix things with Castle if she has to, and hopefully find their rhythm as a team again. But for now, she can't afford to focus on anything other than the man in the break room and their daughter dozing against his chest.

* * *

Castle carries Lily to the black (stereotypical) SUV outside of the precinct, grateful for Kate's closeness at his back. She rests her cheek to his shoulder in a moment of reprieve on the sidewalk before they have to load up.

McCord's team is split into two vehicles - herself and Hendricks in the front seats of theirs, Smith and Franklin driving ahead of them in an identical suburban, willing to take the risk of a threat first in order to protect the second SUV. But the noble information fails to provide him with any comfort.

Lily sits snugly in her booster seat between them once they're all settled inside the vehicle, buckled up and fighting to stay awake. She drifts against Kate's chest, one of her fists curled at her mother's stomach while the other clings to the arm she's stolen from his side, looped through hers. The light nighttime traffic thins out into nothing the farther from the city they drive. These quiet roads would lull him to sleep too if the darkness didn't feel as if it were on the verge of swallowing them whole.

Even after driving for half an hour, his anxiety has yet to calm, his gut continuing to stir with a sense of wrong. And while Kate hasn't said anything, has made no indication of it, he can tell that she's struggling with a similar dread. He notices it in the looks she continues to throw over Lily's head.

And when the SUV in front of them swerves once before it screeches to a stop, he knows instantly why.

It's no more than a second before Franklin and Smith's vehicle bursts into flames.

"Son of a bitch," Hendricks curses, slamming on the breaks.

Castle jerks an arm out in front of both Kate and Lily, his hand colliding with Kate's elbow as she's quick to do the same. Lily holds onto them both, her fingers digging into his arm as Hendricks shifts gears.

But just as they begin to reverse, they hear the roar of an engine approaching. Castle jerks his gaze over his shoulder, catches the glare of headlights growing brighter by the second.

Rachel draws her weapon and Castle catches sight of her rolling down her window, maneuvering her upper body through the slot of space.

"Lily, ears," Kate commands just before the shooting begins.

Their daughter covers her ears with her hands, buries her face, her scream, into Castle's side. Hendricks is speeding forward, past the charred SUV, but Beckett is already mimicking McCord, unfastening the gun from her waist. Despite the lurch of their SUV, he sees her reach for her ankle. And then her determined eyes seek his through the glare of approaching headlights.

"Do you remember?" she shouts over the noise. He holds out his hand in response. The familiar weight of her Sig is in his palm again feels right.

Castle lifts his head, ready to defend them, noticing the foreign van lining up alongside theirs as he does.

"Hendricks," Rachel yells.

Beckett swears under her breath and grabs for Castle's arm, wraps her other around Lily. She tugs him towards her, away from the door he sits against just as the other SUV rams into their side. It repeats the move even as Hendricks attempts to accelerate, edging them off the road while McCord struggles to get a steady shot to their enemy's tire.

"Castle," Kate chokes out, gripping his arm hard enough to bruise, staring back at him through the panic swarming her gaze. He wants to tell her they'll be okay, to just hold onto him, to Lily, and not let go no matter what.

But there's no time, only a split second of locked eyes, not a chance to even open his mouth and let the words spill free.

"We're going off the road, brace yourselves!" Hendricks shouts, the van already beginning to edge from the shoulder. They run over bumpy terrain of gravel and dirt, debris from the surrounding woods, and Kate curls around Lily while he curls around her.

McCord's gasp as she's yanked back inside the vehicle by Hendricks is the last sound Rick is able to register over the crunch of metal and shatter of glass, Lily's screaming and Kate's grunts of pain, his own-

Until it all finally stops.

Their van rolls once due to the help of one final slam from the assaulting SUV and plows into something hard enough to force them to an abrupt stop.

Castle tries to see past the pounding in his skull, the black spots in his vision. His ears are ringing as he attempts to raise his head.

"Kate, Lil," he rasps, flexing his fingers around Kate's shoulder, earning a muffled moan in response, a whimper from between them. He needs to move, save his family, but - but he can't feel anything, can't see, can't stay.

* * *

"Castle," Kate groans, unbuckling her seatbelt with shaking hands. Lily is huddled against her, crying against her chest, but her little girl - thank god - was mostly shielded from the blows of the crash, tucked tightly between them. Her worst injury is likely a knock to the top of her head against Kate's chin.

"Beckett," McCord coughs from the front seat, her voice wavering. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I think me and Lily are okay, but Castle's unconscious. Hendricks?" She yanks on Castle's seatbelt despite the searing pain in her shoulder until the buckle finally gives. She brushes her fingers to his slackened jaw, follows the structure of bone to the bloodstained skin above his eyebrow.

"Someone's coming," Lily whispers and McCord lets out a sharp breath, reloads her weapon.

"Stay here."

"Rachel," Kate protests, but she's already opening her door, slipping out of Beckett's sight and into the darkness.

"Momma, why did they blow up the other van? Why did they crash into us?" Lily questions, her voice trembling, sounding so scared. Kate pauses to cradle her daughter's terrified face in her hands, presses a kiss to her forehead.

"Lily, the bad people that took Daddy are trying to hurt us and I have to go help Aunt Rachel stop them, okay?"

"No, Mommy, no!" Lily cries, scrambling in closer to cling to Kate's chest. And for a moment, Kate holds her daughter as close as possible.

"I'll be right back," she whispers into Lily's hair. "You have to stay here with Daddy, can you do that for me?"

She feels the hesitation in Lily's arms before they loosen from her neck. Her little girl sits back on her knees, her red-rimmed eyes glittering in the dark.

"Please come back, Momma. Promise you'll come back," she whimpers.

Kate stains one last kiss to her forehead, bites back her own tears, and takes a deep breath.

"I will," she gives in, even though she knows better, hates to ever make a promise she can't know she'll keep. She has no intention of dying. But Castle is unconscious, and she has precious cargo to protect.

Kate turns to the passenger and grips the handle. It's stuck, bent into the frame by their rollover. She has to ram her shoulder against her door for it to open, hissing in pain as her bone sings with agony, dislocated from the feel of it. She steps out onto the grass with wobbly legs, but the crackle of gunfire sharpens her senses. Beckett finds her center, raises her weapon and circles around the back of their mangled vehicle. She spies Rachel first, shooting at the driver of the enemy van from behind a tree.

The man is perched behind the mangled door of his vehicle, but he doesn't notice her, his focus intently on McCord.

The second he steps out from the cover of the SUV, Kate fires.

He goes down, collapsing to his knees before falling face first into the dirt. McCord cuts her eyes back to Beckett with a terse nod of gratitude.

"Still a good shot."

With that threat neutralized, Kate begins to scan the area. Her heart is pounding hard as she fights to maintain focus, keep it from straying to Castle, to the image of blood flowing from the nasty cut he sustained to the tender flesh above his eyebrow, to Lily and her fear of Kate not coming back.

Her whole life is in that fucking van and she'll protect it at all costs.

"I can get an ambulance on the way," Rachel adds, edging backwards towards their SUV with her weapon still raised. "Let's just clear the area first, make sure there aren't any more-" Her gaze snaps back to McCord just as she jerks her gun in Beckett's direction. "Beckett!"

Kate feels the sharp jab before she can even sense the presence at her back. A needle in her arm, the muscle already going numb. She doesn't have to look to know who it is, dragging in a breath of Kelly Nieman's harsh perfume.

"Rachel, get - get them out," she yells, her voice breaking as her knees begin to go weak.

"Oh, Detective, I hate to tell you," Nieman sighs at her back, controlling her descent to the ground. "It's already too late."


	20. Chapter 20

Lily watches in horror through the window as the woman with the red hair sticks a needle in her mother's arm and lowers her to the grass. She pulls a gun from inside her black trench coat as Aunt Rachel races back to the suburban.

"Daddy, you have you wake up, you have to," Lily begs, shaking his shoulder again. But he remains unmoving, unconscious, and she rushes to dig in his jacket pocket until she finds his phone.

Her small fingers keep trembling, like tiny heartbeats exist in each tip, but she remembers the passcode, her mom's badge number, and goes to the app the second the device unlocks.

"Don't worry, Daddy. You won't get lost again."

Lily presses the button just as Rachel wrenches the door open.

"Lily, honey, we have to go," her aunt insists.

Lily quickly buries the phone deep inside his jacket's inner pocket, the one he told her was like a secret compartment.

"That's why it's my favorite," he explained with a smile just a few nights ago, letting her explore all of the fabric's ins and outs. "Tons of places for surprises and secret weapons."

She hustles to climb from her booster seat towards Rachel's outstretched hand, but as Lily's fingers embrace the curl of her aunt's, a quieted shot, a strange _phut_ , snaps through the air.

Lily jumps, Rachel gasps. It's hard to see in the darkness, but the bloom of red in the middle of her aunt's white shirt stands out in the glow of headlights.

Rachel's fingers go loose in hers.

" _No_!" Lily gasps, trying to hold onto Rachel's hand. But the woman collapses to the ground. And Lily has to let go.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that, sweetheart," a woman's voice sighs. Lily scrambles backwards, pressing into the side of her dad's arm. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you," the lady coos, but her eyes are scary, her hair dark like the color of the blood on her aunt's shirt.

No, this woman's gaze is like ice.

"You hurt my mom," Lily argues, but the woman merely offers her a smile.

"I just made her go to sleep. Both of you are coming with me. Whether you want to or not. But you don't want me to have to give you a shot too, do you?"

Lily glares at the evil woman's smile, but her skin prickles at the memory of the needle. It looked like it hurt going in her mommy's arm.

"My daddy," Lily says, but the woman waves her off, like he isn't even there, and snaps her fingers.

"I have no use for him."

Lily doesn't know if that's a good thing or not, but she slowly begins to crawl towards the bad lady even though she knows it's wrong; she has no choice.

"Good girl," the woman praises, like Lily's some kind of baby, and wraps her long fingers too tight around her arms.

She hoists her out of the car, over Aunt Rachel, and Lily tries not to look, to cry. Not in front of this woman. Lily's forced to wait at her side as the woman holds onto her by the collar of her blue jean jacket, keeping her eyes closed while she pulls out a cell phone from her coat pocket.

"I've got what I need, come get yours," she murmurs into the phone, nudging Lily on ahead like a dog on a tight leash. "Okay. Yes, soon. Bye."

The woman lets her go as they reach Kate and Lily drops to her knees, grabbing for her mother's limp hand. She checks her pulse like Aunt Lanie taught her, feeling the weak thud of life beneath her fingertips.

"Alright, sweetie, I'm going to put your mom in the car, then you're going to get in after her," the woman says, nodding to a car parked amidst the bushes and trees, black and sleek and easy to hide in the dark. "If you try to run away or do anything bad…" The woman shows her the gun. "I don't want to shoot your mommy, but I will, got it?"

Lily doesn't answer, but she nods, sticking close to her mom as the woman lifts Kate up by her underarms and drags her to the car. The door to the backseat is already open and after Kate is lying down across the seats, Lily climbs in. She maneuvers over her to the spot where her mom's head rests, gently slipping beneath so Kate can sleep with her head in Lily's lap.

"Don't worry, Momma," Lily whispers when the woman slams the door shut on them. "Daddy will be okay. He'll find us."

The woman slides into the front seat, starts the car, and meets Lily's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"My, my, you are your mother's daughter," she comments, easing the vehicle out of the trees, towards the road. "Such a fiery gaze."

"You killed my Aunt Rachel," Lily grinds out.

"She got in my way," the woman shrugs, driving the car in the opposite direction from where they were going with Aunt Rachel and her FBI team.

"My mom's going to get you," Lily states boldly. The woman only looks back at her with a raised eyebrow, a smile on her lips that makes Lily's stomach flip.

She reminds her of one of the villains from her favorite Disney movies - Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, the stepmother from Cinderella, the evil queen from Snow White.

"You think so? Isn't she one of the good guys, though? Not a fan of the whole murder thing?"

"She stops the bad guys." Because if this woman is the villain, that makes her mom and dad the heroes. And the heroes always win, they have to. "Like you."

Her gaze fails to become any less scary, but Lily refuses to look away until the evil woman finally redirects her gaze to the road.

"Mm, I'll guess we'll just have to see, won't we?"

Lily leans back in the seat and glances down at her mother. This Maleficent is so sure that she's won, that she can get away with killing Aunt Rachel, with kidnapping them. But Lily knows Alexis will find their dad and together, they'll find Lily and her mom.

Because she was there when her older sister was explaining a special feature on their dad's new phone to Kate and she remembers what Alexis said to do in an emergency.

She pushed the panic button.

* * *

When Castle feels the edges of consciousness tugging him out of the darkness, he can tell he's been out for a while, his mouth dry like cotton, his head like a brick. But as he tries to draw his hands forward, he's met with resistance, cords around his wrists that he knows without having to see.

The lids of his eyes protest, but he forces them to open. The crust of blood along his left eye sticks to his lashes, weighs them down, but he fights the pull of sleep, blinks until his vision focuses. The first thing he notices is that Kate isn't here, neither is Lily, and that this isn't his old cell of a room in that deserted cabin in the woods. Neither of those absences is reassuring.

No, this place is different, more lived in, and he's tied to a chair. If he was back at the old location, he has no doubt Tyson would have him strung up like a ragdoll already.

"Ah, look who's awake."

Rick's gaze flies towards the sound of his worst nightmare personified, strolling into the room with his hands tucked into the pockets of his suit, that hint of a sadistic smile that still haunts Castle's dreams.

"You know, Rick, I have to say," Tyson begins, venturing further into the room with an intrigued tilt of his head. "You amaze me."

Castle curls his hands into fists at his back, flexes his fingers and tests his bindings, feeling the wire cut into his skin.

"Six years we kept you locked up in that room, barely ever letting you even see daylight, and you're still kicking. I gotta tell ya, I wasn't planning on keeping you half that long," Tyson muses, as if they're reminiscing over a fond memory, one that has Castle's stomach churning. "I thought two would probably be the max, that you'd break for sure, and then I could go through with the original plan. Kill you and send your body to Kate Beckett's doorstep."

Castle jerks in the seat at the sound of her name in Tyson's mouth, earning a twisted smirk as the other man sits against an adjacent table to face him.

"But Kelly… that woman is a sociopath with a more sadistic mind than even mine and I love her for it," he chuckles, lacing his fingers between his knees. "She wanted to physically and mentally destroy you, mostly to destroy Beckett, and _then_ send you back into society. Of course, you caught onto this plan since - apparently - the experimental drugs she was testing on you didn't do their job well enough, and you broke out before we could wipe your memory. The stamina you've got, though. I can't help but be impressed."

"Stamina?" Rick repeats on a rasp, glowering at Tyson despite the weakness of his voice. The other man nods.

"Like I said, _six years_. And you still had the will to break out of there, never gave up or begged us to kill you. And while we're giving out praise here, I have to hand it to Beckett too," he acclaims, shaking his head as if in disbelief. "She kept looking for you like a dog with a bone for _years_ , finally caves and marries some other guy - Tom Demming, by the way, a real catch - and then dumps him for you. It's barely been a month since you got away. If I'm remembering correctly from when I bugged your place all those years ago, you guys had quite the healthy sex life. How long did it take her to drag you to bed? And - oh, tell me, what does she think of my handiwork?"

The legs of the chair screech against the floor at the revolt of Castle's body straining forward and Tyson chuckles.

"You know, I never found the whole blood and gore thing very satisfying, but Kel does, and watching you suffer, finally paying your penance for ruining my life… it was worth every crack of that whip to your back."

"Then why do you still need me?" he gets out. "Can't you just live your psychotic happily ever after without me in the picture?"

"That's just the thing, Rick. You've proven that as long as you're alive, you'll always pose a problem for me, always be in the picture whether I want you there or not. So, at last, I'm going to make you disappear for real this time. Meanwhile…" Tyson reaches beside him for a laptop, flips the screen open.

Castle's heart goes still, threatens to shatter.

Kate lies strapped to a metal table, squirming against her restraints, while Lily sits tied to a chair against the wall. Her glare is fierce and trained on Kelly Nieman, who stands in front of a large computer screen with… Kate's face and what is unmistakably the outline of a surgical procedure to remove it.

"Kelly will take care of her. And well, as for the little brat, I'm obviously not a fan of kids, but she thinks the rugrat will make a good mentee."

"Let them go," Castle growls, his blood beginning to boil, his skin feverish, but Tyson merely clucks his tongue.

"You see, I would, but again, Kate Beckett presents the same problem as you do and the kid is just collateral. Always was. You know, you're lucky Beckett's buddy Bracken was killed in prison before he learned about that one," Tyson informs him, nodding to Lily on the screen. "Giving me the idea to take you, break her, was one thing, but boy, if he would have known you guys had a bun in the oven-"

"Bracken?" Castle echoes in a moment of confusion, fearing the concussion he surely has from the crash is interfering with his clear thinking, but Tyson exhales a long sigh.

"Long story short, our ex-Senator wasn't too happy with how your girl not only put him away, but humiliated him in the process. He wanted revenge, managed to contact me, and the master plan was born," Tyson says with a shrug. "If you haven't noticed, Beckett is pretty hard to kill. Bitch just won't die, but it's no secret what her mother's death did to her. Bracken knew losing you on her wedding day would finally make her snap. He was almost right. But in the end, he died thinking he got what he wanted, Kelly's about to slice your girl's face off and take your kid, and then I'm going to kill you. So we all win. You know what I'm most excited for, though?"

Castle squares his jaw as Tyson leans in closer.

"I can't wait to see your face while you watch her die."

Rick thrusts his head forward, slams it into Tyson's nose.

"You son of a bitch," he hisses, stumbling back with a snarl, cupping his bleeding nose with his hand. "You never learn, do you? Fine, you know what? I remember where practically every scar on that back of yours is."

Tyson yanks open a drawer and withdraws a knife. Castle only glares back, his face throbbing and thick with blood. But he's done being afraid.

"You know, I've written characters like you, Jerry," Castle mutters, even as Tyson approaches with the hunting knife, circling Castle's chair. "Cunning psychopaths so narcissistic they believe they can't be caught, but it always ends the same. You always lose."

Castle grits his teeth against the slash of the blade through his shirt, through one of his deeper scars, and squeezes his eyes shut as the pain surges outwards from the opened wound and spills through his back.

"Yeah?" Tyson says, tearing through another strip of scar tissue, and Castle struggles to stay conscious, to focus on anything other than the pain sending black spots spiraling through his vision. "Well, not this time."

* * *

She wakes up groggy, her body too heavy and her head clouded with confusion and bad dreams. The gag in her mouth making it hard to breathe-

Kate's eyes flash open, the glare of fluorescents harsh, but she blinks past the blinding light, flexes her legs, her arms. Both are bound, her body laid flat and strapped down to a cool surface.

"Mommy."

The whisper of her daughter's voice has her head jerking to the right, where Lily sits on a tall stool, her small wrists bound together with zipties and her face pinched with terror. Beckett yanks at her bindings, and the table she's on rattles with the movement.

"Ah, Detective Beckett, you're awake. Good, we can get started," Kelly Nieman's cool voice spills through the room. Plastic on the walls, construction materials pushed into the corner near the door, but the computers against the front of the space and the camera overhead are all new and in use.

She's in Kelly Nieman's temporary lair, that much is immediately apparent, and her daughter has been dragged into this hell with her.

"Despite the situation," Nieman states, coming to stand beside the head of the table Kate is strapped to. She places her hand on a metal stand beside it, her fingers dancing over a bag of tools that gleam beneath the lights.

Not just a lair then. A makeshift surgical suite.

"I admire you, I always have," she continues, reaching out to brush her fingers along Kate's cheek. Beckett lurches away from the touch, flexes her wrists beneath the bindings once more. "Such a perfect face. I wonder if Lily will inherit the same lovely features. Too soon to tell right now."

Kate grunts, flicking her eyes to Lily, who's watching with her knees pulled up to her chest.

"I didn't want to tie her up," Nieman sighs, casting a long-suffering look over to Lily. Kate's heart picks up speed, rage and panic overtaking her chest. She has to grit her teeth, bite her tongue before she growls at Nieman for even _looking_ at her daughter. "She did so well on the drive over and I was going to allow her to remain free, help me even, but then she tried to bite me on the way in here."

 _Good girl._

"As I've told your child, there's no point in resisting," Nieman continues. "In fact, if you accept that, I can remove the gag."

Kate coils her fingers around the railing of the table, along the opposite side and out of Nieman's view. She finds a bolt beneath her fingertips that moves at her touch and subtly tests the restraint, the strength of it. If she can just buy them some time…

She nods and Nieman adopts a pleased half-smile, what Kate assumes is all she can physically manage, and begins to ease the gag down to Kate's chin.

"Good. And please, don't scream. It's tedious and as your daughter knows, no one can hear you." Nieman stands to dim the lights and reaches for a remote beside the table that causes it to tilt forward. "Besides, this won't take very long, will all be over very soon."

"You can still save yourself," Kate tries to reason, her throat dry and protesting the words. She glances back to Lily, forces a swallow to coax her larynx into working, to keep going. She has to keep going. "Kidnapping and murder are crimes, but if you plead guilty, as an unwilling accomplice to Tyson-"

Nieman chuckles and activates a green light that shines directly onto Beckett's face.

"I've already been saved," Nieman explains simply, retrieving another device from the floor, scanning it along Beckett's face, and eventually causing a graphic to appear on one of the computer screens. "I used to be ashamed of who I was inside, the things I dreamt of doing, but then I met Jerry and it was like... coming home. I would never turn on him. I would think that you of all people would understand that."

"What are you talking about?" The image of her face on the screen becomes more defined, contours and features steadily beginning to integrate onto the graphic. "And what are you doing?"

"One question at a time, please," Nieman replies, admiring the detailed image on the monitor. "What I meant is that you spent six years pining after Rick Castle, seemingly certain he was alive despite the odds, and you took him back despite the circumstances. Why? Because he's your great love and you would do anything for him. Just as I would for Jerry."

Beckett scoffs, scrapes her nails along the stitching of the restraint. "You can't honestly believe that he won't kill you once you're no longer useful to him." Nieman rolls her eyes. "Have you not seen what he's done in the past? I can help you, Kelly."

"You are helping me, which leads to your next question - with all the police attention, I'll need a new face." Nieman returns to stand beside her, running her fingers along Beckett's cheek once more, even as Kate turns her head away. "And there is no other I would rather have than yours."

Lily gasps and Kate struggles against the instinctive panic continuing to fill her lungs, closing her fingertips around the loosening bolt alongside the table that's keeping the strap of her restraint in place.

Nieman smiles, turns back towards the computer screen.

"You can't have my mommy's face!" Lily protests, jumping down from the stool. "You said you weren't going to hurt her!"

"That was then," Nieman answers without sparing a glance in Lily's direction. "Now, please get back in your seat before I tie you to it."

"It doesn't matter what kind of face you have, you'll always be ugly on the inside," Lily snaps and Nieman rises from her chair, faces the girl with ice in her eyes. Lily only glares back at her, all feisty and brimming with attitude.

Kate has never been more proud. And terrified.

"Your daughter has quite the mouth on her," Nieman states tersely. Kate ignores her, gritting her teeth as the table lowers back to its horizontal position.

"Lily, come here," she calls, earning the obedient pivot of her daughter's body towards her, the rush of footsteps to her side. "It's going to be okay, baby. I promise, just-"

"Momma, she killed Aunt Rachel," Lily tells her, her words starting to melt into a whimper, her bound hands ascending to prop on the edge of the table near Kate's shoulder. "And she made me leave Daddy."

"Your daddy is in good hands," Nieman interjects, walking up behind Lily.

"Don't _touch_ her," Kate snarls, shaking the table with the jerk of her body.

But Nieman draws Lily back by the collar, nudges her towards the stool against the wall once more.

"Jerry's always taken such good care of him."

Something inside of her threatens to finally snap. The dark horror in Castle's eyes every time he awoke from a nightmare, the demolished plains of his back and the barely healed gunshot wound on his side, all flash behind her eyes. Kate jerks harder against her restraints, scratches furiously at the slackening strap, feeling the skin of her fingertips going raw, starting to bleed.

"Let him go," she demands, struggling against Nieman's touch as the other woman draws the gag back up to cover her mouth. "Don't you dare hurt him. Don't you dare-"

Her words go muffled and she tries not to scream beneath the gag, solely for Lily's sake. She waits for Nieman to turn back around instead, to resume her twisting of the bolt beneath her hand, and rotates her head to catch Lily's gaze as she does. She holds her daughter's petrified brown eyes, but when Kate attempts her most reassuring nod, Lily swallows hard and nods back.

She wonders if this is at all similar to how her dad felt when she was a little girl, adamantly refusing a nightlight even though she was still afraid, choosing to stare down the dark instead. Only this was worse than a dark room at bedtime.

This is the kind of darkness that could swallow them whole.


	21. Chapter 21

The pain in his back is so intense, it's a struggle for him to breathe. Watching Kate on the monitor as she's tormented by Nieman and trying to stay calm for Lily, isn't helping.

"I'm giving Kel a week before that kid drives her crazy and we've got to dump it in a river somewhere," Tyson chuckles. Lily seems to be arguing with Nieman on the screen. The sound is muted, but the frustration visible.

Castle grits his teeth, but can't manage to speak yet. The splintering pain down his back is too raw, too deep, and taking all of his willpower to stay conscious. It could be worse, but Tyson wasn't lying - he remembers where all of Castle's most vulnerable scars are and he went for them, not having to do much to do damage.

"Well, Rick, if you've got nothing left to say - for once - I think I'm going to make the call, speed things along so we can get going already," Tyson sighs, pushing up from the table and wiping the bloodied knife on the dark leg of his pants. That twisted smile graces his lips, the malicious twinkle in his eye, and he stares down at Castle, clearly relishing the power. "Still think you're getting out of this alive? That she is?"

Castle lifts his head, his forehead damp with sweat and his eyes stinging with the held back salt of tears. He glares back at one half of the team that tortured him for six years, sucks in a breath through his nose, and parts his split lips. But before he can try to speak, spit a few final words at the other man, he notices a flicker outside the window at Tyson's back. A familiar flash he knows too well.

"Yes," he gets out.

Jerry's brow furrows, but he doesn't have the chance to respond.

The bullet pierces the glass, hits Tyson in the back and causes his eyes to go wide. Castle watches as his own personal dragon is finally slain, the surprise draining from Tyson's black eyes, along with his life.

The door swings open.

"Dad," Alexis sighs, a relief that quickly turns to horror as she rushes forward. She doesn't even spare a glance in Tyson's direction as the monster collapses sideways. Alexis stutters to a stop in front of her father while Ryan races past them to ensure the man is truly down, truly dead this time. "Oh god, we have to get you to a hospital-"

"No, no, Kate and Lily," he presses, his heart accelerating with desperate hope. He jerks his head to the monitor and Alexis's eyes expand at the sight, fly to Ryan.

"Ryan-"

"Already on it," he states, the phone pressed to his ear, Tyson's cell alight in his other hand. "Yes, I need an emergency trace on the following number."

"How did you find me?" Castle asks. Alexis cuts through the restraints around his wrists, offering her hands to help him stand.

"Either Lily or Kate pressed the panic button on your phone, which activated the emergency tracker I had installed," Alexis explains, her features carved deeply with concern as he struggles to straighten. His back is weeping, but it doesn't matter, can't matter right now. He has to get to Kate, to Lily- "We arrived at the scene of the crash, found… found Rachel and the rest of her team dead and Agent Stephens got this address after talking to Tyson's old cellmate. I'm just so glad you were actually here."

"I'm glad you installed a panic button on my phone," he breathes, clutching her shoulder and sealing a kiss to her forehead. "But Kate and Lily are - we have to get to them. Nieman's going to kill her, maybe Lily."

"Got an address," Ryan announces, bounding towards them with the coordinates on his phone as uniforms begin to spill in. "Castle, do you really think you should-"

"There's no time and I'm fine, we need to go," he insists, doing his best to put the pain out of his mind and striding through the open doorway with Alexis on his heels. He follows the trail of officers to the front porch, just grateful to have the privilege of walking outside, of being free again.

"Hey, you okay?"

Castle spins at the sound of Esposito's voice. His gaze snags on the headgear resting around the other man's neck, the sniper rifle in his grasp, and the NYPD issued jacket held out to him.

"I owe you," Rick murmurs, accepting the outerwear, but Esposito shakes his head, purses his lips with what looks like a tinge of guilt.

"Nah, bro. You don't."

Castle's mouth twitches, but as Ryan rushes up alongside them, he nods to the phone in the other detective's hand.

"Nieman has Kate and Lily and we need to get to them. Now."

Esposito's face hardens, exactly what Castle needs, and he jerks his head towards their police cruiser. "I'll drive."

* * *

She can't feel her fingers anymore, but she refuses to stop, spinning the bolt round and round until it slips free. She slides the strap of her restraint to the unhinged edge of railing, only a few threads of fabric left for her to scratch away.

"I think I'll call her Madison," Nieman muses from her seat at the front of the room. Her attention is on the computer screen where she's virtually carving away at Kate's face and plastering it onto an image of her own.

Lily watches in disgust, but asks the question they're both wondering at Nieman's random statement. "Who?"

"You. Oh, did I forget to mention that?" she mumbles, angling her chair towards Lily. The way Nieman looks at Kate's daughter with such intrigue causes her stomach to churn. Her raw fingers work faster to scratch through the bindings. "I wish we had found out about her sooner, but between Jerry and I, we couldn't have eyes on you at all times, Detective. It took a while for us to even learn of Lily's existence, to factor in this unexpected addition, but the solution is simple. She's coming with me after we're done here."

Kate's brow furrows, so does Lily's, but she has a sinking suspicion as to what Nieman's talking about, the only thing she could possibly mean by that.

Her heart starts to riot with rage.

"What?" the girl asks.

"You have potential, Lily. I can harvest it, turn you into something great. You, me, and Jerry… it'll be wonderful," Nieman tells her, but the woman has finally pushed Lily into an ultimate panic.

"I'm not going with you," Lily argues, her voice an octave too high.

Kate works quicker to break free, feeling fibers falling apart beneath her fingernails, yanking once on the metal railing.

Nieman sighs, pushing back slowly from the desk and strolling across the room to stand in front of the stool.

"We're going to have to work on your disciplinary skills," Nieman assesses calmly, crossing her arms and staring down at Lily as if she's an experiment, a problem needing to be solved.

Kate growls.

"Don't touch my daughter," she gets out past the gag, pausing in her escape plan as Nieman glances back over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth curling.

"She won't be yours for much longer."

"I won't go with you! You can't make me!" Lily shouts at her, kicking forward with both legs, nearly knocking herself from the stool as her foot connects with Nieman's knee.

The other woman jerks back, cupping her knee and cursing under her breath before regaining her composure, standing straight again.

"I apologize for this," Nieman prefaces and Kate's pulse picks up, rallies, because if that woman lays a hand on her kid- "But my methods of behavioral training will be far more effective than anything you've ever experienced. Just ask your father."

Nieman's palm slaps loudly against Lily's cheek, a yelp of pain flying from the girl's mouth, _blood_ , and it's the final straw.

Kate's wrist jerks against the table, ripping free of the binding at last.

She immediately bends forward to unbuckle the restraints at her ankles next, more ripping out of them than anything, and swings her legs over the edge. Her hand is trembling, her wrist raw, but she snags the first and sharpest tool she sees on the stand to cut her other hand free.

"Lily, close your eyes."

Nieman spins around at the sound of Kate's voice, a hand instantly rising to defend herself, but Beckett catches her by the wrist. She crushes the bone as she yanks Nieman away from Lily.

She drives her body backwards, shoving her into the farthest wall. Kate pins her there with the slam of her forearm to Nieman's throat.

"Lily," she repeats, still sensing her daughter's gaze on her. Kate waits until she does as she's told, checking over her shoulder to watch Lily bury her reddened face in her hands and turn away to curl her knees into her chest once more.

"Detective," Nieman chokes, but Beckett only tightens her grasp, digs her nails into the other woman's skin. "You're making a-"

"I told you not to touch my daughter."

The scalpel slices through the porcelain skin of Kelly Nieman's throat.

Kate lets her go, the blood spilling onto her hand as she watches the woman collapse to the ground with shock in her gaze and a gurgling noise bubbling past her lips.

It doesn't take long for her to choke on her own blood, for the lights to go out in her eyes, but Kate waits, the scalpel heavy in her fingers and dripping blood onto the leg of her jeans. She waits until the woman who played such an integral role in Castle's torture, who killed her friend, kidnapped her daughter and subjected her to horrors no child should ever have to see, is well and truly dead.

"Mommy," Lily calls quietly. Kate spins, her heart descending from the heights of panic. She quickly drops the scalpel, scrambles to pull herself together, to come back from the edge she's balanced on. "Can I turn around now?"

Raking a hand through her hair, she gulps down a breath. "Yes."

She strides for Lily and her daughter jumps down from the stool, instantly runs towards her with tiny hands still bound. Kate goes to her knees to wrap her arms around Lily, grabbing her up.

"I told her, I told her she was a bad guy and that you'd get her," Lily whispers breathlessly, burrowing deep into Kate's embrace. It takes all she has not to sob, to lose it right there with her little girl curled against her. "I knew you wouldn't let her take me."

"Never," Kate promises, biting down on her own trembling lip and burying one of her hands in Lily's hair. She allows herself the moment to cradle her daughter to her chest, to assure them both that they're safe, before she's forced to think, to get her mind straight so they can find a way out of here, find Castle.

Oh, god, she has to find Castle-

A shout from outside has them both startling and Kate jerks to her feet. She shoves Lily behind her and reaches for another daunting tool from the the tray. She recognizes those sounds, though - the break of a door, the call of commands, and then she hears her name, his voice.

"Beckett!"

The door is kicked open, Ryan and Esposito racing through first. Their attention immediately falls to Nieman before swinging towards her. Alexis isn't far behind, a vest strapped to her chest and her gun raised, two SWAT agents flanking her. Lily gasps.

"Lexi, you did it," she cries out, stumbling forward with her hands still tied. Javier lowers his gun, already withdrawing a knife from his belt to cut Lily's bindings.

But Kate's heart is still in her throat, her eyes searching the group of faces, until-

"Oh, thank god," Castle breathes, breaking through the small crowd at the door, his gaze already on her. She drops the surgical tool in her hand just in time for him to reach her. Castle pulls her into an embrace that she rises into without hesitation, that finally, fully crushes the panic in her bones. "I was so scared it was too late. I was so scared I lost you both all over again."

She does lose it a little then, her body sagging and a sob catching in her throat that she buries in the fabric of his NYPD jacket. Her eyes are burning with tears and his arms tighten, practically drag her off her feet.

"Did he hurt you?" is the first thing out of her mouth, her entire body trembling beneath his touch, because the scent of copper is filling her nose, fresh bandaging.

"Later," he murmurs into her hair, his cheek wet against hers. She eases her arms up from his sides, curls them around his neck, and closes her eyes.

"Daddy," Lily whimpers softly and Kate immediately loosens her hold on him, looks over to see Alexis standing beside them with Lily in her arms.

Castle unwinds one arm from Kate, hoists Lily onto his hip with Alexis's help, and buries them both against his chest. Lily clings to him and he drops a kiss to the top of her head, whispers words Kate can't hear into her hair.

"I'm sorry I left you, I didn't want to leave you," Lily gets out, her voice starting to hiccup.

Kate splays her hand at their daughter's back, begins to rub soothing circles out of habit while Castle shakes his head.

"Never be sorry, Peanut. You have no reason at all to be sorry," he rasps. "You were so brave."

Lily curls her fingers in the fabric of his jacket. "I pressed the panic button like Alexis said and she found you and you found us. I knew you could do it."

"That was you?" Castle whispers. Lily nods, opening her tear-filled eyes when Kate leans in close, touching her forehead to Lily's.

"My smart girl," she manages to expel the words evenly. "I can't tell you how proud I am of you."

"How proud we both are," Castle adds, resting his cheek to the top of Lily's head, and it's the smile her little girl musters that finally coaxes Kate's heart to ease.

"Is it really over now?" Lily asks, wiping her tears against Castle's shirt, and he nods.

"Yes, promise," he murmurs, lowering his arm to Kate's waist. He dusts one more kiss to Lily's forehead before he allows Alexis to take her, watching Lily wrap her arms around her big sister's neck.

"Then can we go home?"

Alexis chuckles and cradles Lily in closer against her chest, the exhaustion settling deep beneath the younger woman's eyes. "We're all going to take a family trip to the ambulance outside and then yeah, we're going home for the night."

There are still statements to give, questions to ask and answer, but Kate doesn't argue, dropping her head to Castle's chest. Ryan is standing beside them with Lily and Alexis, talking gently to Lily and examining her wrists, telling her how happy Sarah Grace and Nicholas will be to know she's okay.

"Kate," Castle murmurs, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. But her face begins to crumple, her control slipping, and all she can do is shake her head, burrow in deeper against him.

"Just don't let me go," she whispers, tears spilling from her closed eyes as one of his hands rises to cradle her skull, submerge in her hair.

"Never," he promises, kissing her temple, the crown of her head. "Never again."

* * *

They're examined together in the ambulance outside of Nieman's lair, having Lily go first with the paramedic until Lanie arrives, demanding to take over.

Their daughter is fine, a bump on her head from the crash, a bit of chafing on her wrists from where the zip ties cut into her skin when she struggled against them. Ultimately, physically, Lily is okay. But she witnessed Rachel shot dead in front of her, was kidnapped by a serial killer who intended to steal her mother's face; Castle knows it's going to take a _lot_ for her to cope with the trauma of tonight. For all of them to.

For now, though, Lanie is keeping their daughter distracted, massaging her tiny wrists and dragging soft laughter from her lips while the paramedic treats Kate.

"I texted Burke, gave him a brief explanation of what happened," Kate tells him through grit teeth. The paramedic has her lying on her back atop the gurney, Castle sitting at her good side as the other man draws her arms outwards. "He - he can see all of us individually. Then t-together later this week."

They both suffered concussions from the crash, his back is a mess, but Kate has a dislocated shoulder. The paramedic suggested a drive to the hospital, but she refused, insisted it be popped back into place here. And now she's trying so furiously not to cry in front of Lily, in front of him.

The paramedic adjusts his grip on Kate's hand, avoiding her abraded wrists and pulling her arm towards him. Castle winces as she squeezes her eyes shut, purses her lips. He almost tells the other man to stop once the tears begin sliding into her hair, but then he hears the sound of bone popping into place.

Kate's chest heaves and her eyes flutter open.

"He thinks Lily will be okay, though. Bounce back quicker," she breathes out and Castle exhales too, realizes he's been holding his breath this entire time.

The paramedic steps away with the promise of retrieving a sling for Kate's arm and Castle scoots in closer to her side. He reaches out to swipe his thumb along the corner of her eye, the quivering edge of her mouth that steadies beneath his fingertip.

"I think so too," he murmurs.

 _But what about us,_ he wants to ask.

He's afraid he already knows the answer.

"Hey, little miss, I'm not done with you," Lanie calls from the other side of the ambulance, even though he's pretty sure she's gone over Lily's vitals at least four times. But she doesn't try to stop Lily from trotting over to them, sidling up next to Castle with her worried eyes scanning over Kate.

"Are you going to be okay, Momma?" Lily whispers, her small hand rising to touch Kate's cheek.

"I'm okay, Peanut. Promise," she murmurs, combing Lily's hair back from her forehead. "Just tired, ready to go home."

Lily nods. "Me too, because we're safe now. For real this time."

Kate chuckles, a watery sound, and covers the hand at her cheek, placing a kiss to Lily's palm.

"You're right. We're safe for real now."

"And you'll feel a lot better once we get home," Lily adds, leaning into Castle's side.

Kate hums. "Yeah, curling up with you and your dad in our bed is a great cure all. It'll keep all the nightmares away too."

He ignores the urge to internally freak out a little at the sound of _our bed_ coming so casually from Kate Beckett's mouth to their daughter's ears, how neither even blink at the wording.

"Momma," Lily huffs, grinning at Kate. "I'm too big to sleep in your bed."

"You're never too big for snuggles," Castle protests, shifting to hoist Lily onto his lap even though it causes the fresh stitches in his back to pull.

" _Fine_ ," their daughter sighs, resting back against Castle's chest. "But I don't think I'll have bad dreams. There's nothing to be scared of anymore and no one's missing. We're all together now."

"Good point," Castle concedes, propping his chin atop Lily's head, hoping she's right, hoping Lily's mind will be bare of bad dreams. He wishes the same logic could be applied to him, to Kate.

Castle stands with Lily on his hip as the paramedic returns. The other man helps Kate into a sitting position and adjusts her bad shoulder into the sling before he begins to list treatment methods for her shoulder.

She nods along, but leans into Castle's side even as the man continues to speak. Her body is still trembling with what he assumes is leftover adrenaline, but she feels relaxed against him, her head resting heavy on his abdomen.

Rick brushes his fingers through her hair, curves his palm at her nape and feels her sigh out, breathing easy. Finally, they can breathe easy.

* * *

Castle steps out of their bedroom to check on Alexis later that night, padding silently into the living room so not to wake her. His oldest daughter knows they're all okay - hell, she's one of the reasons their little family is still intact - but she insisted on sleeping on the couch for the night, wanting to stay close.

He gingerly bends forward, the cuts in his back stretching with warning, but he's able to brush the fiery strands of hair from Alexis's face, drape an extra throw blanket over her slim frame before he straightens and starts back for the bedroom.

Kate is still awake, lying on her side with Lily curled against her chest, her head on his pillow and her eyes trained on the wall. Lily drifted to sleep between them hours ago, their daughter immersed in a deep slumber now, but neither he nor Kate have been able to do the same.

"Kate?" he calls softly. She glances up, staring at him in the golden lamplight of the bedroom, some of the shadows receding from her face when her eyes meet his. "Is there anything I can do?"

Her lips flicker with the ghost of a smile, all he thinks she'll be able to manage for the night, for a while. She carefully untangles from Lily, sits up in the bed with her hands curling at her kneecaps, her blunt nails embedded in swollen skin. He saw her fingertips in the ambulance, scraped raw and covered in her own dried blood.

"I just want to take a shower. Feeling okay enough to join me?" she whispers, her eyes so tired, her attempt at a smile weak, and the bruises he knows must be littering her body calling to him.

"That sounds perfect," he murmurs, holding out his hand to her. She pauses to tug the comforter higher at Lily's shoulders, ensuring their daughter is tucked in snug and warm, but then she reaches for his outstretched hand. His heart stumbles a little at the soft pleasure in her eyes as she curls her fingers around his palm and walks with him into the bathroom.

They promised Lanie and the paramedic - turned medical assistant, courtesy of Lanie - to keep an eye on each other throughout the night and he intends to keep his word. He wants nothing more than to stop thinking about the events that led them here and just take care of Kate for the night.

Castle starts the water when she lets him go to begin undressing, the simple task a process for them both. The paramedic that patched up his back covered his stitches in a thin layer of ointment, dressed them in waterproof bandaging so the wounds wouldn't be so vulnerable, protected but able to breathe. He still avoids the pound of water against his back as he steps inside the shower.

The hot water feels heavenly on his chest though, his head, soaking his hair and his bruised scalp. He savors the sensation until he hears Kate joining him seconds later, opening his eyes to watch her step inside with her head down and her hair spilling over her bad shoulder. She hisses as the hot water makes contact with her injury, pursing her lips so tightly they blanch. He has to refrain from the urge to touch her, draw her away from the downpour. But she closes her eyes, exhales slow and deep, and the tension steadily begins to drain from her body.

"Okay?" he asks after a moment and her eyes slide open, her limbs loosened and drifting towards him.

"Yeah, how's your back?" she murmurs as the steam starts to build between them.

He shrugs, forgets that hurts again, and reaches for her shampoo.

"Kind of excruciating," he answers honestly, squeezing a dollop of the sweet smelling liquid into his palm. He works it into a lather in his palms before gesturing for her to come closer so he can slip his fingers into her wet hair. "But not as bad as I thought it would, not as bad as the first time. Tyson likes to choke people, isn't as good with a knife."

Kate makes a grim sound of acknowledgement, her lashes fluttering as he blends the shampoo through her hair, massages his fingertips along her scalp.

"Did Nieman… do anything to you? Hurt you at all?" he inquires, sweeping his gaze over the slick skin of her body in front of him, but most of the scrapes, the bruises, appear to be from the collision on the road. Not from a human hand.

"No, I don't think she had it in her to do anything. Prior to removing my face," Kate mutters, but her bones visibly shudder at the mention of it, and Castle grabs for the conditioner.

"You never would have let her get that far. You're too strong, too much fight in you, and - and thank god our daughter is just like you, Kate," he sighs out, running his fingers thoroughly through her hair again. But she lifts her hands to curl around his wrists, shakes her head.

"Not just like me," she argues quietly, tilting her head back into the spray of water, allowing it to run through her hair before she looks back to him through the spill of water, her lips in a tender smile. "She has your mind, Castle. So smart, pushing the panic button."

He chuckles at that and reels her back to him once the last of the suds have been washed from her hair, watches her eyes roam his figure, checking for extra injuries.

"You know her better than I do," he murmurs, earning the rise of her gaze back to his face, the slight wrinkle in her brow. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

Kate's hands coast up his sides, ascending to rest atop his chest, her fingers spreading over his heart.

"I do," she nods, her eyes on her hands. "I still want her to talk about it, to work through it completely, but… it's almost like you, isn't it? I know it's not the same, but you did tell me you witnessed a tragedy, a death, when you were around her age."

Ah, one of the few stories he hasn't told her completely. Kate knows the summary of his nightmare in Hollander's Woods all those years ago, enough to make the comparison now, and she isn't wrong. He didn't think about it, probably never would have formed any kind of connection between him and Lily in that way, but… it gives him hope.

"It haunted you, but you didn't let it destroy you," she continues, her fingers steadily venturing back to his sides, skimming the edges of his back, avoiding the placement of bandages. "In fact, I think you turned out pretty great and if she's anything like you, then I know she'll be even better than okay."

Castle glides his hands up the naked skin of her back, against the sluicing stream of water. He lets his chin fall to a rest against the top of her head when she lowers hers to his sternum, presses her lips to the base of his throat.

"I don't know how you handled six years," he confesses aloud, tracing the slippery contours of her back, the river of her spine. "I didn't know where you were, if you were alive, for maybe an hour and I felt like I was going to lose my mind."

Kate exhales a stuttering breath against his collarbone, the wet wings of her lashes fluttering beneath his jaw. "We know where you were now, where they were keeping you."

He dislodges his chin to glance down at her, curving his palm at her nape when she's slow to meet his gaze.

"Stephens let me know they had a lead before we left, but he told me at the scene that they've confirmed a location," she murmurs, her eyes lingering on his chin. "We can go there, if you want to. If you think it would help."

His chest bumps against hers with the inhale he attempts, sputtering at the mist of water he intakes. Kate cups his cheek, sweeps her thumb beneath his eye.

"It doesn't have to be now," she adds, her voice warm like the water, soothing. "Or it doesn't have to be ever. I can ask them to just give me the address, send photos, whatever you're most comfortable with, Castle. But that's what it comes down to - what you want, and I'll support your decision either way."

The irrational fear, the leftover panic, that began building in his chest, dissipates at her words and Castle draws her in closer. He aligns the slick pieces of their skins, revels solely in the comfort of her body slotted into place against his and not the slow burning need she never fails to evoke.

He can't afford to tear his stitches.

"All I want right now is this," he breathes, whispering his lips along her forehead. "To be here, with you, our family, to just - heal."

Kate's head tilts backwards, her lips staining his jaw before he leans in to kiss her, to sip the droplets of water from her mouth.

"It's mutual," she mumbles, one of her arms slithering up to wind around his neck while the other, her dislocated shoulder, curls at his waist.

Her mouth parts beneath his, their tongues meeting in a languid glide. Castle walks her back into the tile wall of the shower, avoiding the most intense of the spray, and eases a thigh between her legs.

"Rick," she gasps, her spine arching into him while he carefully bows forward, his body a cove around hers. "Oh, oh, Castle, you can't."

He nuzzles her cheek with his nose as she pants, paints his mouth to the hinge of her jaw, the sensitive spot behind her ear. He sucks at her neck until she rocks forward, whimpers into the thick air.

"You can," he murmurs, traveling back up the column of her throat to return to the holy place of her mouth, feeling her body throbbing against his, her heart galloping hard between them. "I've got you, Kate."

She looks up at him in the haze of steam, of arousal in her gaze, and touches two fingers to his chin. She guides his mouth to hers in a gentle gesture amidst the thrumming need, her kiss like a caress, the gratitude, the relief, heavy on her tongue.

"I know you do," Kate whispers, arching on her tiptoes, her hands cradling the back of his skull. Her eyes are washed clean of trauma, flooded with naked want, with the bright promise of love.

He kisses her again, skates a hand down her spine and drags her closer, and yeah, this is all he wants.


	22. Chapter 22

Kate's hand is tight in his as they step out of Agent Stephens's suburban together, the gravel driveway crunching beneath their feet. Castle sucks in a breath at the sight of the cabin in the woods, nestled deep amidst the trees.

They're in Connecticut, not New York like he assumed. Northeast and near a river that Stephens theorizes Castle eventually escaped to.

"We found an abandoned motor boat that washed up on the coast of New Jersey. It'd been reported stolen over a month ago, around the time of Rick's re-emergence, and it had a dinghy attached to it," the agent explained to them on the drive over. Castle had been unable to fathom how he got from Connecticut to the coast of Delaware. "It matched the description of the one you were found in. My guess is that you took the motor boat as far as it would go and continued in the smaller boat until you eventually passed out from what I presume was exhaustion. The current was reported strong that night, probably just carried you from there, left you adrift for at least a day."

It isn't that Castle doesn't believe the plausible assumption - Stephens is likely spot on - he just wants to remember it all for himself.

"I'll wait out here for you guys," Stephens tells them, cutting the engine. "Local cops came by to unlock the place earlier, so take as long as you need."

Beckett murmurs her thanks in response, but Castle's gaze is still trained on that god-forsaken little cabin. So innocent looking, lonely even, but inside is his own personal hell.

"Still okay?" Kate asks at his side, her thumb brushing along his knuckles. He glances down to see her watching him, the bruise that colored one side of her forehead from the car crash two weeks ago almost completely gone, most of the residual horror that clung to her eyes from that night now receded.

The decision to accept Stephens's offer to finally see Castle's place of captivity wasn't an easy one and for the first week, he simply put it out of his mind. He focused solely on his physical recovery, on Kate's, on going to therapy twice a week with her and Lily. It wasn't until Burke brought it up in their second session, his individual one, that he even began to consider it, allowed his curiosity to get the best of him.

No matter how severely it terrifies him.

So they contacted Stephens, planned an early morning trip with every intention of returning to the city by midday, despite not needing to pick up Lily from school today. Tom Demming is taking her to their favorite smoothie place and then for soccer in the park, something they apparently bonded over years ago.

It still nags at him, but Tom was there for Lily during the years that Castle couldn't be. The other man adores Lily as if she's his own, and jealousy aside, Rick can't help but be grateful for the positive presence Demming has been in his daughter's life.

Kate sways into his side and he flexes his fingers, tangles them with hers.

"Still okay," he confirms with a nod, squeezing her hand and offering her his best attempt at a reassuring smile, one he's sure falls flat.

But Kate lets him take the lead, following as he guides them up the short path of the driveway, onto the porch steps that creak and groan beneath their weight. She waits patiently as he hesitates at the front door.

It's just a house, small, unremarkable and not well-kept by any means. The people who made the place feel so evil are gone, dead, and can't hurt him anymore.

Castle curls his hand around the knob, pushes the door open to reveal a surprisingly normal-looking home. Not that he expected chains and whips to line the walls, but it's… unsettling, picturing Tyson and Nieman so casually existing here while he was in one of these rooms somewhere, suffering.

Kate remains close to his back as he steps inside, roams his eyes over the living room. The mismatched furniture is worn with age, the fireplace against the wall layered in dust, and the wallpaper is peeling, faded and featuring a pattern of mallard ducks.

"I never spent any time here," he murmurs. His gaze is cast along the kitchen that merges with the modest living area in the cabin's open floor plan, unaltered in decades. It makes him wonder how anyone would willingly stay here, so secluded and cut off from the rest of the world, but that was exactly what Tyson and Nieman wanted, wasn't it?

"She must have grown up here," Kate mumbles, nodding towards the mantle. There are scattered framed photos showing a young redhead with an older man and woman, each shot posed and stiff.

"An unhappy childhood, I'm sure," he mutters, suddenly eager to get out of this space where Kelly Nieman still exists so heavily.

Castle starts towards the hallway that sits between the kitchen and living room, checking each door that lines the length of the short corridor, revealing a bathroom and two normal bedrooms. But the fourth door leads to a larger room which lacks a bed, dresser, any personal touches.

A wooden desk consumes most of the space instead, pieces of technical equipment littering the surface, a computer propped up in the middle.

"The speakers in my room," he realizes aloud, releasing Kate's hand to take a closer look, but not touching anything. "This must have been where Tyson talked to me, where they watched me, always knew what I was doing and when I would try to escape."

He can practically envision the view of his room on the computer's dark monitor, can remember all of the hours he spent glaring at that tiny, blinking light of the camera in the corner across from his bed. How he attempted to knock both it and the speakers down on multiple occasions and how he was punished for it.

"Castle, were you ever… treated here?" Kate inquires. He turns away from the monitoring equipment, sees her examining a small cot pushed up against the wall, stains of blood on the white sheet pulled taut across the top.

The scars on his back flicker with phantom pain.

 _You should know better than to defy him._

Castle pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as his first clear memory of Nieman pierces through his skull.

"Once," he chokes out, earning the flash of Beckett's gaze.

In that moment, he regrets what he's about to tell her, regrets bringing her here. She looks so much healthier, her skin tinted with far more color, the hollows of her cheeks a little fuller, and the blue of her shirt bringing out the golds and greens in her eyes. He doesn't want to douse them in darkness, but she's waiting on him, on edge and impatient to know. She wants everything and he promised to give it to her.

Too late to go back on that now.

"He had - Tyson, I'd made him mad. Close to the end. He used the whip, went too far, then tried to strangle me with it. She made him stop."

He remembers now, being dragged into the house by the both of them, being dropped on his stomach atop that little cot against the wall near the door where Kate stands now. Nieman treated his wounds to stop the blood loss, to keep him alive.

"A year and a half ago, I think," he offers, time having become such an ambiguous thing. That's at least how old Doctor Xanders presumed the deepest of the scars on his back to be, and he knows the worst were born from this incident.

It was his first time being outside again, seeing the open sky and the branches of trees trembling overhead, feeling the dirt beneath his feet and the air in his lungs. It revived him.

"It was what I needed."

Her head jerks towards him at that, her eyes on fire and wide with horror. He holds up his hand in supplication.

"I was giving up, pushed Tyson on purpose, hoping he'd just… kill me already," he confesses, and he has to watch her heart break, crack across her face. Her arms band around her body in a habit that he hates, and it makes him want to cross the distance between them, hold her until it dissipates. But he needs to get this out. "It had been so long and I was starting to forget what the outside meant to me, what it still held. Alexis's smile, the sound of your voice, it - the marriage announcement in the paper had a picture of you and I managed to keep it, it helped me remember even though that hurt, but I just… I wasn't getting out of there. And I knew it."

Kate wipes a hand over her eyes, glares down at the cot and squares her jaw. Fuck, this is even harder than he anticipated, worse than he imagined.

"But when they had to bring me in here, it was my first time out of that damn room, Kate." He sees her press the tips of her fingers to her mouth, her eyes dry, but she just looks so broken, broken _for_ him. Maybe they shouldn't have come, maybe he should have come alone, maybe she should go back to the car.

But no, she insisted that they do this together, that she wasn't letting him go through any of it alone.

Castle covers the space between them, steals one of her hands from its coiled place at her ribs.

"It reminded me that there was still a world outside, one I wanted to get back to." Her eyes flicker up to meet his, glossy and raging like the sea, grief and fury swirling in her gaze. He thoughtlessly grazes his thumb along her naked ring finger. "It reminded me how much I wanted to get back to this, to you."

Kate tugs on their tangled hands, shaking hers free to wrap both of her arms around his torso, hugging him tight, and his breath catches unexpectedly. Because he can't count how many times he imagined this very moment here, the privilege of holding her again, the warmth of her body in his arms and the scent of her hair in his nose. How he clung to the memory of her to get through each endless day.

"Castle, you said you had to be taken outside," she murmurs, her voice thoughtful and her head lifting. "And we've walked through the entirety of the house."

He straightens with understanding, glances back over his shoulder to the computer screen.

"I was somewhere else. And… they had to drag me through the kitchen, not the living room, to get me in here," he recalls aloud, that memory hazy due to his tormented body, the pain steadily overtaking his brain. But the whine of the backdoor resounds in his mind and- "Backyard."

Kate steps back, ready to let him go first. Still, he reclaims her hand, starts for the exit with her at his side.

* * *

Kate follows him through the back door just off the kitchen, her heart still thick and in her throat over everything he's told her. The things he remembered in those few minutes, the look on his face and the way his voice cracked as he recalled how badly he wanted Tyson to kill him. She can't blame him, would never fault him for that, but the idea that she came so close to losing him for good, for real, without even knowing, causes her chest to clench and burn.

And all while she was off getting _married_ -

"I think this has to be it," he says after they've circled the perimeter of the home, dragging her attention back to the present. Castle is standing in front of a storm cellar with rotting wooden doors and a raised cement outline. "It was always cool where I was, clammy. I just thought it had to be a basement, but this makes more sense."

He bends forward to tug on the chains and padlock looped through the handles of the doors, but they fall loose, already unlocked. Kate moves to help him, easing one of the brittle doors open while Castle pulls back the other. The smell of damp concrete rises to greet them, like rain on sidewalks, and Castle takes an immediate step back. He turns his face away from the ominous black entrance, the stone steps that lead down to more darkness.

She doesn't speak, doesn't want to push despite the concern building through her bones and the instinctive urge to ask questions, to know. But his moment of revolt is brief and he exhales slowly before returning his gaze to the cellar's entrance.

"If you want to wait up here-"

"No," she gets out, ensuring that none of the trepidation churning through her guts is showing on her face when he glances back to her. She hopes she looks stronger than she feels. She needs to know where he was for the last six years, needs to see it. If he can survive for six years in a storm cellar, she can survive a few more minutes down there with him. "I'm with you. Unless you want to go in alone, then I can-"

"No." Castle shakes his head. "I just don't want to - to hurt you with this."

"Rick," she calls, curling her fingers at his elbow. She presses into his side and he leans into the contact, visibly grateful for it. It reminds her of his needs, his sometimes desperate desire for physical comfort. "Don't worry about me. This is… brutal, but I'll be fine."

He doesn't necessarily look convinced, but he sways into her, touches his lips to her temple. He lingers there for only a moment before he pulls back, redirects his attention to the storm cellar.

"Better get it over with then," he exhales, steeling himself with another deep breath and following the first step down, the next. Kate goes in after him, descending into the darkness with the glare of sunlight at their backs.

It provides enough illumination for them to make it to the bottom of the stairs without issue and she watches Castle feel along the cold walls until he encounters a light switch. It brings a single fluorescent panel flickering to life overhead, casting a sickly blue glow throughout the room.

She blinks to adjust to the dim setting, but Castle seems accustomed to it already. She tries to ignore the way that cleaves through her chest.

"This is it," he breathes, his eyes roaming the cell. It has a dome-like ceiling and thick, steel pipe running along the length of it, with cords of rope hanging from the beam. The sight of that rope sabotages her, her breath her lungs threatening to collapse.

But Castle isn't even looking at the rope. He instead moves towards the bed attached to the wall, sturdy links of chain keeping the thin mattress in place a few feet above the ground, a thin, disheveled sheet strung across it.

The fluorescent shines directly above the bed and she watches Castle hesitate for a moment beneath it before leaning over the tiny mattress. He eases a hand underneath the bed's edge, comes away with a slim piece of paper.

"They never found it," he whispers.

Kate finally unsticks her feet from the bottom step, the low heels of her boots echoing loudly. The paper in his hand is worn and limp, a newspaper article the size of his palm.

"He gave it to me to torment me," he says, his thumb sweeping over the square image of her face. It's the same picture they used when her shooting at Montgomery's funeral made all of the local papers. Her eyes fall shut in revulsion. "And it kind of was, knowing what it was pertaining to, but… it was the first time I'd seen your face in over four years."

Kate steps in close behind him, drops her forehead to the back of his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she rasps. "Four years and I - I never should have stopped looking. I could have found you, I could have-"

"Kate," he grinds out, reaching back to squeeze her hip. She stays there with her forehead sealed to his shoulder and her tears leaking into his shirt. "Stop it. We've talked about this. You're a damn good detective, but you never would have found me. No one would have found me."

She chokes out an unbidden sob at the acceptance in his voice, bites down hard on her bottom lip to stop any more from breaking free. Castle brushes his thumb to her hipbone.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he says a little softer. She eases one of her arms around him, along his chest, and hooks her fingers over the rounded bone of his shoulder, keeps her other pressed between her chest and his back. "You had to think about Lily above all else and I'm glad you did. Look how perfect she turned out; that's all because of you."

Kate huffs, kisses his shoulder blade even as her head shakes in protest.

"I'm serious, Kate. Stop trying to take any blame for this, for anything. There was nothing you could have done."

She finally peels herself from his back, lets his arm circle her waist and reel her into his side.

"That makes it worse," she admits on a breath, swiping at her cheek and resting her forehead to his jaw. But her eyes are open, trained on the floor, catching the faded crimson specks staining the concrete, dried drops of his blood. Kate lifts her head to look up at him, one of her hands to his throat to drape her fingers at the steady beat of his pulse. "Knowing there's nothing I could've done to help you, to find you. Yet you were never dead to me, Castle. You couldn't be."

One of his arms loops at her neck, aiding the other at her waist in gathering her against his chest, mending some of the torn and aching pieces inside of her. She lets her cheek rest against the middle of the sternum, closes her eyes to the horror this room holds, and clings to the knowledge that Tyson and Nieman didn't win, didn't break him, keep him from her. Their demons are dead and they're standing damaged but whole in a place where Castle was once a prisoner.

He's free now, able to walk out the second he chooses.

"That's what kept me going, Beckett," he breathes against the crown of her head, loosening his arms around her. Kate tilts her head back to see his face, following the drift of his eyes around the room, the way they linger on the ropes overhead, the camera attached to the corner They snag there, unable to move on, and he doesn't finish the thought.

She waits him out, seeing memory building in his gaze like a spark trying to catch fire.

"That night I escaped," he starts, his voice dropping to that faraway tone he sometimes adopts unconsciously, drifting with his mind as his arms slip from her frame. "It was a storm, a really bad storm, and the red light went dark."

"The power went out," she clarifies on a breath. He nods dumbly, roves the walls with his eyes.

"The only way I could ever tell when it rained was when the water would start to seep along the walls. It's too hard to hear it down here, but that night, the thunder was so loud, it felt like it was shaking the ground," he recounts, his gaze flicking to his bed. "I never knew what time it was, night or day, but it felt late. It was one of the rare times I was just lying in the bed, not tied up, because Nieman - she'd been making Tyson give me those injections that week and they made me so tired."

"Injections?" she echoes, her chest tightening with a dread that has become an all too familiar companion.

"To make me forget. Tyson mentioned it when he took me a couple of weeks ago, an experimental drug, but she got it wrong and - and that night, as soon as I saw that red light go dead, I ran up the stairs, rammed my shoulder into the door until it finally broke open," he reveals. His skin shivers and she wonders if he's remembering the rain on his flesh, the harsh winds in the air, the strike of lightning and crash of thunder all around him. "I just kept running. I don't know which one of them shot me, but I remember running through the trees, the rain, not stopping, not even feeling the bullet."

Her palm splays instinctively at his side, protectively, just below his ribs. His bones rise and fall beneath her touch.

"And - yeah, yeah, Stephens is right," he whispers, his eyes aflame with the memories now, overflowing with them. "I ended up at the river, found a dock, a boat, the keys in the ignition. I didn't think, just took it and didn't stop. All I could think about was distance, putting as much of it between me and them, this place. I didn't even know where I was going."

Castle's eyes flash back to her, his hands gripping at her waist.

"I remember, Kate. I think I remember all of it now." His face is clear as he stands straighter. "I was pointing that boat towards the city, towards you. I just wanted to get back to you."


	23. Chapter 23

After a few more minutes of standing amidst the wreckage of memories that have crashed down around him, Castle turns to her in the middle of the storm cellar.

"I'm ready to go."

Burke warned him that returning to his place of captivity might evoke an overflow of emotions, some difficult to deal with. He knew that coming here would potentially trigger memories that have remained locked away, including the ones his mind may have willingly helped the cocktail of Nieman's drugs suppress. And his therapist was right.

Castle has remembered years' worth of torture and devastation, anguish and hope, within the last couple of hours alone. But it isn't as excruciating as he feared. Not when he has Kate Beckett standing in front of him, reminding him that the blurs of images flashing through his mind are all part of a past that is now over, no longer his present.

Yes, the six years he spent here in this cellar with Tyson and Nieman in control of his life did happen. He unwillingly abandoned Kate on their wedding day, left her to raise their daughter alone. He lost so much valuable time, but there's no way to go back, to change it.

And he can't bear to agonize over it anymore. He can only move forward.

"Okay," Kate murmurs, but she hooks her fingers in the pocket of his jeans first. She withdraws the newspaper article he has tucked away inside, one of the few things that kept him motivated to survive throughout those last couple of years.

"Hey, wait," he protests when she produces a lighter from her back pocket, because yes, she definitely came prepared - knife snug against her belt, gun at her ankle, pepper spray on her hip. She doesn't know he watched her preparing that morning, strapping weapons to her body, but he had no intentions of stopping her. Not if the extra artillery makes her feel safe.

It admittedly provides him with some comfort. He can't count how many times he wished for a gun in the years he spent here. And they can never be too cautious, especially when they're on a piece of property that feels haunted by Tyson and Nieman's ghosts.

"You don't need it anymore," she says, her voice firm but calm as she holds the photo out of his reach. Her thumb snaps the lighter to life and he watches the flame reflecting in her eyes, doesn't try to snuff it out. "You'll never need this picture again."

The corner of the newspaper catches first, eating away at the margins, then the words of the article. Kate lets it spread, licking at the edges of the black and white print of her face, before she drops it to the concrete floor between them. It shrivels quickly, the orange flame flickering fierce for a handful of seconds before the clipping has but ash.

"And I hate that picture," she mutters, staring at the small pile of soot at their feet.

"Then you owe me a new one."

"Deal." Kate holds out her hand and he accepts the warm embrace of her fingers in the cold cell of a room.

He spares one last glance to the camera, the compact but powerful speakers positioned on either side. He went into so many rages, threw so many plates at those pieces of technology, tried to rip them down from the walls with his own hands. Especially in the first year, when they used to shred his eardrums with the blare of that wretched Vera Lynn song. A reminder, a warning for Kate.

"The footage the FBI found will be destroyed," she informs him quietly. "There's no use for it. Stephens promised me."

"Why should we trust the FBI's promises?" he mumbles.

Kate squeezes his hand, draws him back from that surge of bitterness. But he knows the FBI was the first to give up on him, and it's a struggle not to resent them for it, for leaving Kate to dive down the rabbit hole alone.

"You can trust Stephens," she insists, meeting his gaze evenly. "It's not just blind faith. During those first few months of your disappearance, we would both stay late at the precinct. Probably because I wouldn't go home and he felt guilty leaving me alone in an empty bullpen to stare at the murderboard." She lowers her gaze to their interlocked hands. "I remember asking him why he even cared. I could feel your case growing cold and I knew they were going to withdraw their resources soon, toss you into the missing person's pile, and I was… angry at him, because I felt like he was just humoring me. But then he told me about his wife."

Castle's heart stumbles for a beat, balances on the precipice of his ribs, threatening to tumble over the edge and sink to his stomach. He doesn't have to be a writer to know where this story is going, how it ends.

"They were both FBI agents, partners, and there was this case they were working - a serial killer targeting women across the country. The day it happened, they were following different leads, so he hadn't seen her for the most part of that day, but when she didn't come home that night, he knew something was wrong." Kate shifts closer to him, as if just the telling of the story makes her over-protective of him. It elicits a flicker of familiar unease in his guts, has him holding her hand a little tighter. "She had been kidnapped by their guy and even when they caught him, arrested him over a year later, they never found her. Stephens still doesn't know the truth, but he has a deal with the killer."

"A deal?" he echoes.

"Stephens visits him in jail every year in exchange for the location of a victim's body. He brings closure to a family every year, but he's still waiting for the day he gets his own."

"Shit," Castle breathes, raking a hand through his hair. He's unable to even fathom the agony Stephens lives with every day, the wondering. He glances back to Kate, witnesses the knowing gleam in her eyes, how their story could have turned out, and... he gets it. Rick sighs even as his heart descends deeper, scraping along his ribs and spilling into the acid of his stomach. "He saw the similarities, did whatever he could to save you from the same fate."

She nods, offering him a rueful curve of her mouth. "That's the conclusion I've come to, yeah. So, while I understand how having faith in people, in their promises, doesn't hold much merit anymore, you can trust in his, Rick."

"I trust anyone you're willing to vouch for," he murmurs, especially when it's someone like Stephens. "Now, let's go. I've had enough of this place."

Kate hums her agreement, sweeps her fingers over what was once his bed. Like leaving her grief in the sheets.

"Yeah," she confirms, abandoning his bed, his cell, and leading him up the stairs into the sunlight. "You have."

* * *

Kate sits close to him on the ride back to the city as they leave the hell of the cabin behind, her thigh flush with his and her head flirting with the idea of leaning on his shoulder. She gives in pretty quickly despite Stephens's presence in the front seat, lets her cheek fall to the round edge of bone. It isn't exactly her style, to crave the proximity, to cling in any way, but Castle is warm against her side, welcoming of the contact, and after the morning they've had, she needs it too.

Stephens pretends not to notice, driving efficiently to beat afternoon traffic, and they arrive back in New York before noon. The agent drops them off at the loft without her having to ask and Castle offers an invitation to join them for lunch, but he declines.

"I took the morning off, but I'm needed on another case," he explains with an apologetic quirk of his lips. "While I wish it had been under different circumstances, it was a privilege to work with you, Detective. And to meet you, Mr. Castle, to help in whatever small way."

Rick stretches from the backseat to shake the other man's hand, hoping the agent can feel the gratitude in the squeeze of his palm. Because he owes Mark Stephens a lot, far more than he knew.

"It was an honor to have such an exceptional agent working my case with Beckett. Truly, thank you for all you've done."

Stephens nods, hints of appreciation emerging from the shadows across his face. After hearing Stephen's history, Rick understands the darkness that inhabits his features, but he hopes that one day the light can breach his gaze again. "Keep in touch and stay safe. Both of you."

Castle follows Kate out of the sedan, waving to Stephens as he merges back into traffic.

"I like him," Rick announces once the black suburban is out of sight and they're standing in front of the loft. "We should hire him for security if we ever need it, like for our next-" But Kate is tugging him in the opposite direction of the loft, her hand fitting effortlessly into his. He laces their fingers, trots after her nonetheless. "Where are we going?"

"To the subway," she tosses back over her shoulder, looking almost mischievous. It ignites something exciting and warm and _good_ in his chest to no longer see the agony from this morning in her eyes, to see a smile stretching across her lips.

He feels strangely at peace after their trip to the cabin, revisiting his cell and reclaiming his memories, but he feared the effect it might have on Kate, that she wouldn't be smiling for a while.

She's proving him wrong.

"The subway. Care to be more specific?"

Kate drags him up the street and he picks up the pace, catches up to her and earns the loop of her arm through his, the press of her body into his side. "Nope."

They descend down the stairs of the Prince street station and she swipes her metro card twice at the turnstile, slows to a standstill with him on the platform where the Q train will soon come to a stop.

 _We took the Q train and we went up to Coney Island._

"Are you taking me to make a stick person?" he inquires, watching the corner of her mouth curl with delight.

"If you want," she murmurs, the apple of her cheek rising with her smile. "Today was hard, pretty devastating at times, and I - I don't want to go back to the loft and think about it anymore. I want to take you to Coney Island, walk up and down the shore, go into the park, and remind us both of our possibilities for joy, even after everything."

The screech of the train fills the air, the shine of the light emerging from the dark end of the tunnel. The curls of Kate's hair sweep to brush along his shoulder, whisper along his cheek as the force of the train billows past them.

They board with a slew of other New Yorkers eager to reach their destination, flowing into the car with the crowd and slipping into an empty spot to stand. Castle holds onto one of the poles, trails his other hand down the inside of her arm to tangle their fingers. Kate leans into his side to maintain her balance as the train lurches on the tracks, squeezes his hand in response. Once the noise has quieted and they're swaying to the movement of the car, he looks down at her.

"Kate," he murmurs, and her gaze flickers up to meet his. Her smile is soft, at ease, and he can't help covering the small patch of space between them to press his lips to hers. "You're my reminder."

She releases a breath against his mouth, her lashes fluttering, and he migrates his lips to her forehead, dusts another kiss between her brows.

"Also, Lily is going to kill us for going to Coney Island without her."

Kate exhales a chuckle against his cheek and hooks her fingers in the belt loop of his pants. "That's why we'll make it up to her by going to the Hamptons for Memorial Day weekend."

"Yeah?" he grins, lowering his gaze once more. She shrugs, but the smile is still strung across her lips, so languid and lovely. He doesn't think he's seen her this relaxed in… well, years.

"Yeah, this is the last week of school. I think we could all use a vacation."

A laugh breaches his lips. God, she could not be more right. Leaving the city with Kate and his daughters for his secluded beach paradise in the Hamptons-

"In that case, I look forward to seeing you in a bikini again."

Heaven.


	24. Chapter 24

Kate is anxious throughout their drive to the Hamptons.

Even as he notices her persistent efforts to calm her nerves, he still catches her continuously checking over her shoulder, the similar glances in his direction as he drives. Lily's presence helps, though, providing a fantastic distraction while she bops along to David Bowie in the backseat and tries to remain inside the lines of her coloring book.

The moment they enter the charming town, farther than he had made it during his last attempted trip on their wedding day, he witnesses Kate visibly begin to relax. Her shoulders loosen and her smiles come easier. She rolls the windows down, lets the sea breeze, the salt air, and sound of waves, rush into the car. Once they actually drive onto his property through the code-required gate, the tension has drained from his wife's - shit, he needs to stop indulging the habit of thinking of her with that title - spine and Lily is gasping in amazement.

She pushes up from the backseat to gain a better view.

"This is your _house_?" she questions at his shoulder and Kate chuckles.

"I had a similar reaction the first time your dad brought me here."

"Your house too," Castle corrects, placing his hand under Lily's fallen jaw to ease it closed. "What's mine is yours and your mom's. And Alexis's. Well, legally, it's divided between the three of you, but-"

"Wait, are you being serious?" Kate inquires under her breath.

"As soon as I found out about Lily and was out of the hospital, fully competent, I put your name on everything," he shrugs, because really, it's not a big deal. But by the subtle widening of Kate's eyes, maybe it is to her. "Kate, I was literally hours away from marrying you the day I was abducted, you're the mother of my child, it should have been this way six years ago. Don't freak out."

"Yeah, Momma," Lily parrots. "Don't freak out."

Kate huffs and Castle unlocks the doors to allow Lily her freedom, but he doesn't tear his gaze from the woman still sitting beside him in the passenger seat, biting her lip.

"You do know I intend to marry you, right?"

Her eyes drift back to him and her lips purse, repressing the smile that threatens.

"I've had my suspicions," she murmurs, watching Lily roam the driveway, spinning in circles and venturing towards the massive front porch.

"Good, because I'm so in love with you, Kate. And that's never going to change."

Beckett leans across the console, pressing a kiss to his mouth that has him drowning. He lifts a hand to cradle her jaw, stroking the hinge of bone with his thumb. The tease of her tongue along the seam of his lips makes him wish they could carry out their tradition when arriving in the Hamptons, taking her straight to bed, or the floor, the table…

"It's mutual," she mumbles, nuzzling her nose at his cheek. "But I'm still going to help pay for stuff."

He exhales a sigh against her lips, but the smile on his doesn't falter. Kate withdraws, nods to their daughter bouncing back to the car with impatience.

"Ready to give the grand tour again?" she chuckles, pushing her door open while he pops the trunk to grab their bags.

"Can't wait," he grins, already anticipating Lily's excitement. He's so eager for his little girl to explore their second home, experience the beach, the sun and the sand.

What he doesn't anticipate is the sight of the front door swinging open to reveal his mother on the other side.

* * *

Kate's eyebrows rise as Martha Rodgers steps out from the mansion that is Castle's Hamptons home. His mother looks as nervous as Kate felt on the ride over, but her face lights up as Lily bounds up the stairs to meet her. She's not sure how Martha managed to get here, how she knew they were coming, but it's the additional shout of "Grandpa Jim!" that has Kate's brow falling into a furrow.

She circles around the car, comes to a stop next to Castle. He glances to her when she brushes his side. "Did you know about this?"

"No," she answers with a shake of her head, sensing the tension threatening to ribbon around his spine. She reaches out to hook her fingers in the waistband of his jeans, tugging. "She looks a lot better, though." Kate takes in the clarity of Martha's gaze as she listens intently to Lily's animated greeting. Martha appears far more alert now, standing tall and put together like she used to before Rick's disappearance.

"Yeah," Castle murmurs, accepting the twine of her hand through his, but she can feel his reluctance to walk with her towards the house.

Martha straightens as she catches sight of them approaching, inhales a quick breath as if to steady herself. It's so strange to see his mother frazzled, especially when it's her son evoking the apprehension, but Beckett is aware that there may be a deeper reason for the anxiety. She knows words were exchanged between the two the night Martha left for rehab, hours before Jim volunteered to escort her to the site of the treatment program.

While Kate had explained to Lily that her grandmother was just going away to 'camp' for a little while, Castle had pulled his mother aside for a private goodbye in the study. But he'd been the one to walk out first, retreating to his bedroom before Martha even left the loft to meet Kate's father outside. That was over two months ago, only a week into Rick's return home, when he was still so fragile and Martha was still so wrought with devastation, disbelief, and the stench of vodka.

That night, Kate asked him about it, but whatever Martha had said before her departure had wounded him and he wasn't willing to talk about it. She hasn't thought to bring it up since.

"Katherine! Oh, and Richard," Martha greets, her voice soft but thick with emotion. Kate squeezes his hand before she lets him go, exchanging a brief, one-armed hug with the older woman before she proceeds to the front of the house where Lily is talking excitedly with her grandfather.

"And then Mommy said Daddy has a house on the beach and that we're going to stay for a whole week! It's going to be as fun as when we stay at the cabin only this is a beach instead of a lake."

Jim chuckles at Lily's enthusiasm while Kate climbs the porch steps, combing her fingers through her daughter's hair once she reaches the top. The chocolate locks nearly reach her shoulders, almost long enough to tie it into the braid Castle attempts every other night.

"We'll go to the lake this summer too," Kate murmurs. "Your dad loves it there."

"Daddy's been to your cabin, Grandpa Jim?" Lily asks, leaning against the white railing of the porch.

"A few times," Jim confirms, directing his attention to his daughter. "Hi Katie." He smiles as he opens his arms and Kate steps into her father's embrace under the cool shade of the magnificent awning. She relishes the firm band of his arms around her, the comforting scent of smoke and wood and old books.

"Hey Dad," she returns with a smile of her own, almost surprised by how glad she is to see him, how much she's missed him. "What're you doing here?"

"Well, Alexis called-"

"Ah."

That explains it. Alexis isn't joining them here until tomorrow afternoon, but Kate knows how desperately the younger woman wants things to be mended between her father and grandmother.

"And since Memorial Day is a holiday and Martha has been doing so well at… camp," he supplies with a flick of his gaze down to Lily. "She was permitted to spend it with family as long as I, her sponsor, am present. But I was under the impression that you knew, Katie, I'm sorry-"

"No," she murmurs, following her dad's gaze back to the driveway, watching the interaction between Rick and Martha. She observes the deflate of his body from its tightly wound state, how Martha cups his cheek with one ring-dazzled hand. "I think it was a good idea after all."

"Are you going to stay with us for the entire week, Grandpa?" Lily inquires, swaying into him. He cups the side of her head, brushes his thumb to the apple of her cheek.

"No, sweet pea, just today, tomorrow, and maybe for breakfast on Monday morning."

"Because Gram has to go back to camp?" Lily inquires.

"Exactly."

"How much longer is she going to be at camp?"

Jim hesitates, glancing to Kate, but she merely shrugs in response; there's likely no one who could handle this specific conversation better than her father can and she trusts whatever direction he chooses to take it in.

"Well, until she feels completely better," he decides, patting Lily's shoulder as she sighs. "But don't worry, your gram is doing great and she's so excited to be here with you for the weekend. She talked about it the entire ride over."

"I bet she's even more excited to see Daddy," Lily chirps, casting her attention to Castle and Martha.

Their conversation has come to a stop, Castle accepting his mother's embrace even if he does seem to be the one consoling her. He winces as she unknowingly squeezes his back, where fresh wounds still heal, and Kate has to suppress the urge to jerk forward. His eyes lift over his mother's shoulder and he stills her with a mollifying glance. She doesn't realize she's been holding her breath until Martha lets him go.

"I'll go help with the bags," Jim announces, Lily skipping along after him with a chipper "I'll help too!"

"Dad, don't worry about that," Kate insists, prepared to follow them both. "I'll-"

"No, you won't," her father answers, narrowing his gaze on her before flicking it to her shoulder. "You're still recovering, shouldn't be doing any heavy lifting."

Kate rolls her eyes, rolls her shoulder too, just to spite him; it doesn't hurt, only twinges with mild discomfort at times. But her dad ignores her, makes his way down to the car, around to the already open trunk, and hands Lily her small, purple backpack first.

Jim Beckett knows practically every twist and turn of the rollercoaster these last few months have been. Granted, some parts have been summarized for his sake - the details of Castle's torture, hers and Lily's time with Nieman, the emotional trauma their little family is working through. He's been supportive through it all, despite his physical absence, doing his best to share the weight of her anguish, stop it from crushing her.

Her dad was the one who helped her raise Lily, helped ease the overwhelming guilt she so often drowned in over those six years without Castle. Both she and her father have suffered similar losses, a widow and a widower, only hers has been reversed, her love given back.

He understood better than anyone and even now, he continues to fortify and reassure her throughout all of her decisions regarding Rick's return.

"He's the love of your life, honey," he told her one night on the phone, the day she realized she was letting her marriage crumble and die. "And you're both getting a second chance. Tom's a good man, treats you well, treats Lily well, and I like him. But if the same thing had ever happened to me with your mom… I wouldn't even have to think twice. There's nothing or no one - save for you - that I wouldn't give up to have her back."

And that sentence alone made all the difference.

"Hey," Castle murmurs, jogging up the steps of the porch to meet her. "Your dad won't let me carry anything."

"Join the club," she smirks, flicking her gaze to their parents and Lily hefting duffel bags from the trunk.

"My mother's been sober for over a month now. It'll be two next week," he says suddenly. Her eyes jerk back to him. "She explained it all, apologized for everything, for blaming me."

"What?" Kate murmurs, her brow creasing at the words and her hands automatically reaching for him. She really needs to get this excessive touching thing under control. Not that Castle seems to mind, stepping in closer at the curl of her hands at his sides. "Rick, she never blamed you. She-"

"I know that now," he nods, glancing back over his shoulder, ensuring the trio at the trunk is out of earshot. "But on that night she left, she was still - she wasn't herself. She was upset, a little drunk, and just so... hopeless. She started crying, asked me why this all had to happen, why I had to leave all of you like that."

"Oh, Castle," she breathes, just imagining Martha saying that to him while all of his wounds were so fresh and raw, when the guilt and the shame were eating him alive. It shreds her heart to pieces all over the pretty white steps of the front porch.

"Kate." He towers over her, curving one of his palms at her shoulder. "It's okay and it's in the past. It hurt, but even then, I knew she didn't mean it, didn't mean anything she said when she was drunk. I don't think she even knew what she was saying at the time. But even if she did, she's already forgiven."

Kate struggles to nod, to accept the fact that he seems to be genuinely okay. She faced similar situations with her own father once upon a time and she forgave him too. She knew even then that he never meant any of the drunken accusations he threw at her after the death of her mother, that he was just hurting, drowning in a bottle of grief. Just like Martha, even after her son rose from the supposed dead; she was still trapped in that bottle, unsure how to get out on her own.

"Besides, you were there the entire time, reminding me that it really wasn't my fault even when I started to worry that it was."

Her gaze snaps back to him, the gentle blues of his eyes staring back at her. His lips quirk, that soft, lopsided smile stretching across his mouth and soothing the ache in her heart. Kate arches on the tips of her toes, fitting a kiss to his mouth and gripping the front of his button down.

"I love you," she whispers, his smile infectious as it blooms beneath her lips.

"I know," he mumbles, squeezing her waist and skimming a kiss to her forehead before he lets her go. He tilts his head towards the house. "Now, let's get Lily inside, wow her with the place, and then take her to the beach."

"She's never going to want to leave," Kate chuckles, hearing the approaching slap of her daughter's sandals on the porch steps.

"Well, we can stay as long as she wants, as long as you want," he adds, causing an unexpected wave of relief to wash through her. It pulls to shore the question of whether it's just Lily who may never want to leave.

Lily skips up the stairs with her backpack on her shoulders to grab Kate's hand, captures Castle's next, swinging her arms between the two of them.

Kate grins, puts everything to the back of her mind, and focuses on the giddy little girl between them.

"Can we go in now?" Lily asks, bouncing on her toes.

Castle reaches forward to turn the handle of the unlocked door, gestures his unoccupied hand forward.

"Lead the way," he announces.

Lily tugs them both in along after her.


	25. Chapter 25

"That is _not_ a bikini, Beckett."

Kate rolls her eyes as she emerges from the french doors, her body covered by a black one piece, but really, he can't complain. It may not be a bikini, but the fabric is tight, just a few black scraps pieced together, and there's enough skin showing along her sides, between her breasts, that he still feels short of breath staring at her.

"Need help applying sunscreen? I'm almost done with this one," he states, rubbing the last of the lotion over Lily's back while she buzzes with impatience on the edge of the lounge chair.

"Nope," Kate replies, purposely popping the 'p' on her lips and sauntering around the two of them to lean her hip against Castle's shoulder. "I'll help you with yours, though."

Her fingers pluck at the shoulder of his t-shirt. Rick grunts in disapproval while Lily tilts her head back to glance up at them both.

"Daddy says he doesn't want to swim," Lily informs her and he huffs, because he can already feel the conspiring that's about to occur. If it's not Alexis and Kate ganging up on him, it's Lily and Kate. A vicious cycle.

"Don't worry, Peanut. We'll change his mind," Kate assures her, furrowing her fingers through Rick's hair and over his sun-warmed scalp. He can't help the hum that rumbles in his chest, the way his body leans into her.

Castle doesn't argue, because Kate Beckett could probably convince him to do just about anything and they both know it, but he does intend to fight her on this one. No one, including his daughter, needs to see his massacred back on display.

"Oh, darling, don't deprive yourself of the ocean," Martha interjects from the chair a few feet away. She's already draped in a sundress, wearing an extravagant hat with shades to shield her eyes as she lounges beside the pool, her favorite Hamptons activity. Aside from the glass of orange juice replacing a mimosa in her hand, he's at least glad that some things never have to change.

"I don't see you rushing to the sea, Mother," he challenges with the corner of his mouth twitching as she waves him off.

"I never spend my time on the beach while we're here, you know that."

"Well, I'd rather build one of my award-winning sandcastles. What do you think, Peanut?"

"Ooh, can we decorate it with shells and find some hermit crabs to live in our castle?" she questions, turning to face him in her bright turquoise bathing suit. It has white flowers blossoming across the spandex, ruffles decorating the neckline, and she looks adorable in it.

"Um, of course," he scoffs, wiping the residual sunscreen left on his hands across his swim trunks and standing from the chair with her.

The doors open once more and Jim Beckett steps out onto the deck with them, grinning at Lily who is bouncing around in her swimsuit. And then his gaze slides over to Castle and Rick feels his stomach clench with nerves.

"Rick, do you mind taking a walk with me?"

"Oh, but Grandpa, Daddy and I were going to build a sandcastle," Lily tells him. Jim merely smiles back at her with that placating smile of his. He thinks Jim Beckett could calm the most restless of souls with that look.

"I promise I won't keep him long, sweet pea."

"Hey Lil, you and I will play in the waves while they walk a little bit, sound good?" Kate says, holding out her hand to their daughter. Lily casts one more glance in Castle's direction before grasping her mother's wiggling fingers.

They start down the steps that lead down to the beach, Kate mimicking Lily and sparing a look over her shoulder to find him, shooting him a reassuring quirk of her lips. Her dad liked him, has always liked him, but that was six years ago, before he caused Kate's world to fall apart and left her to raise their unborn daughter on her own.

He hasn't been able to talk to Jim since he was found again and he's come to the conclusion that there's a reason for the avoidance.

"Don't look so petrified, son," Jim chuckles, stretching his arm out for Rick to go ahead.

He follows the path Lily and Kate took down the stairs, veering sideways to walk along the shoreline rather than towards the water. Jim matches his steps, strolling alongside him.

"Not necessarily petrified, just… worried," Castle supplies, resisting the urge to twist his hands together, wring out his anxiety, but there's no stopping the words that begin to spill out of him then. "Listen, Jim, before you say anything, I just want you to know that I'm aware of the damage my disappearance has caused and I intend to spend the rest of my life making it up to Kate, to Lily-"

"Rick," Jim interrupts, slowing in the sand to touch Castle's shoulder. He pauses immediately to meet the older man's gaze, which is surprisingly soft and… guilty? "The reason I want to talk is to apologize to you."

"What? Apologize?" Castle echoes, his brow furrowing deep, because he's certain that there's absolutely nothing Jim Beckett needs to apologize for. As far as Rick knows, Jim has been one of the few constants in Kate's life, in Lily's, over the past six years. If anything, the man deserves nothing but gratitude, definitely not forgiveness.

"Yes," Jim sighs, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants and allowing his gaze to drift to the sea. Castle follows his line of sight to the waves lapping at the shore, to Lily and Kate in the water. From here, they can hear Lily's laughter distant but filling the air as she and Kate attempt to jump over an incoming wave. "I know some of her actions may contradict it, but no matter what happened, who she was with, Kate never lost faith that you were alive. I think she tried to, knowing how slim the odds were, it would have been better for her. But she never lost hope, never really gave up."

Jim is not the first to tell him this, but somehow coming from her father, it means even more, causes his heart to swell and press against his ribcage.

"Even after months turned into years, she still held onto you. Even when I told her to let you go."

Oh, that stings a little more than he expected it to. He can tell Jim has seen it too, since Rick was unable to school his features quickly enough for the older man to miss it.

"I was afraid, watching her spiral over you. We both know how deep she fell over Johanna, how… visceral her grief can become, and as someone who's lost what she had, I knew that losing you was going to be even worse for her," Jim sighs, frowning down at his toes in the sand. "I was afraid she'd be like me. I was so scared she would abandon Lily like I abandoned her."

Castle can barely breathe, hanging on the man's every word, even as they cleave through him with every syllable.

"But Katie is stronger than I ever was," Jim admits with a small curve of his lips, pride in his deep brown eyes. "And I know Lily played a large role in it, anchored her, but she had to be strong to stay afloat, to keep from drowning like I did."

Rick finally releases the air trapped in his lungs, exhaling shallowly through his parted lips. "You were looking out for your daughter, there's nothing to be sorry for."

"I've been a bit cowardly," Jim continues with a shake of his head. "When she told me you were alive… I wanted to start believing in miracles again. I wanted to see you, to see her happy, see Lily with her father, but I felt guilty for what I'd said, how I'd essentially tried to discourage her from having any sort of hope in your survival, and I suppose I thought I could mend that shame by trying to make it up to you."

"Helping with my mother," Castle connects and Jim nods. "Being her sponsor."

"Yes. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to do it, would have volunteered to help any way I could regardless, but that still doesn't excuse me taking this long to see my son-in-law," he sighs.

Castle's heart stumbles back into his ribs at the term, the muscle sure to be bruised and battered by the end of this conversation.

"Kate and I never-"

"Close enough," Jim mutters, drawing a breathless chuckle from Castle's lips.

"Still no reason to apologize," he concludes, meeting the older man's eyes despite the bright glare of the sun. "You thought I was dead, who didn't? You wanted your daughter to be okay, to be stable, I probably would have done the same in your position. But I don't hold it against you, Jim. Honestly, I'm just relieved I still have your approval."

"Rick," Jim murmurs, her father so solemn, serious but kind. "You never risked losing it. You make my daughter happy, you always have, and I'm just… so glad to see her whole again."

He wants to hug him, this man he's always so greatly admired and respected, the kind of man he wished his own father to be. Jim must see it in his eyes, because he moves forward, embraces Rick in a one-armed hug, patting a gentle hand to the middle of his back.

"You were family before you went missing," Jim adds as he pulls away. "That hasn't changed."

* * *

Kate divides her attention between playing with Lily in the water, catching her daughter as she rides the waves that push her up and into Kate's arms, and watching Castle with her dad. Her heart flutters at the brief hug they share, the way her dad claps Rick on the shoulder, thankfully not in the vicinity of his scars.

She expels a breath at the sight, the reconnect of the two most important men in her life.

Right before Lily splashes her with an armful of water and she's left sputtering.

"Got you, Momma!" Lily snickers as Kate lifts her sunglasses to wipe at her eyes. Kate dives towards her in the waist deep water and her daughter swims away with a squeal.

"You're going to pay for that, Peanut," she calls out, purposely taking her time to swim after Lily, grinning as her daughter hustles to move through the waves, to catch her breath through her giggling.

Kate has just caught up with her, snagged an arm around Lily's squirming body and earned a shriek that is falling apart with laughter, when she's grabbed from behind. She nearly loses her balance in the waves, releasing Lily in her surprise, but Kate recognizes the feel of the arm around her waist. Lily shouts in victory at her freedom, splashes away with a grin over her shoulder.

"Thanks, Daddy!"

Kate huffs and turns in his arms, glares up through her sunglasses to see Castle smirking down at her. His upper body is still clothed in a white t-shirt, now sprinkled with drops of water, soaked along the hem, and she tugs on the fabric.

"Changed your mind?" she questions with an arch of her eyebrow, her body rocking into his with the help of the lapping waves. Castle shrugs, his shoulder shielding the sun burning bright behind him, making him look angelic despite the devilish grin.

"You were right," he states, his eyes bluer than the ocean around them and flickering from her to Lily. The girl is seemingly lost in her own imagination a few feet away, diving underneath the water only to spring back to the surface seconds later. It has Castle's grin going soft before his gaze settles on Kate once more. "You guys looked like you were having so much fun, convinced me to join without even trying."

"Mm," she hums, hooking her hands at his shoulders, coiling one of her legs around his beneath the water and letting the undulating current do all the work. "Good talk with my dad?"

Castle narrows his eyes on her. "You can't mention your dad and then do that, Beckett."

She chokes on a laugh and release his leg, twines her arms around his neck instead and combs dripping fingers through the fine hairs at the base of his scalp.

"Sorry," she murmurs, grinning as his arms tighten around her waist, pulling her up against him and drenching the front of his t-shirt with the water from her body.

"Good talk with your dad," he confirms. "I've missed him."

She softens a little at the unexpected confession, leans in to touch a kiss to his cheek.

"I know he missed you too," she mumbles, brushing her thumb along the sensitive skin behind his ear. "Late in the summer, Lily and I usually spend a week at the cabin with him. She loves the lake and I remember you always did too-"

"I remember the cabin," he assures her, squeezing the bones of her hips, the sharp juts digging into his palms. "And I'd love to go back there. It's so peaceful."

"You're what made it peaceful for me."

Castle tilts his head, his lips quirking with gentle confusion.

"I thought the cabin's always been peaceful for you."

"Yeah, but not quite as much after my shooting," she hedges, rolling her bad shoulder as the heat of the sun begins to dry the moisture across her skin, promptly heating her flesh. "I'll always love the cabin, it's been a special place for me, but the trips we would take there together… you're what made it fun, helped me get rid of any bad memories from that summer."

She averts her eyes to Lily, ensuring she doesn't venture any deeper into the sea, but Castle lifts her sunglasses up to rest atop her forehead. The lack of her shades forces her to blink a few times to adjust to the brightness before she's able to glance back to him. It's worth it once her vision stabilizes, gives her a clear view of his face, the love saturating his eyes.

"I look forward to us all going back there too," she murmurs with a smile curling at her lips. "As a family this time."

His face lights up even more at that, dares to outshine the sun.

Kate uses the swell of an incoming waves to push up on her toes in the sand, sweeping into his body and lifting with the current to kiss his smiling mouth seconds before Lily swims towards them.

"Hey Daddy, can we build sandcastles now? Momma, you can help too."

"Best sandcastle builder gets breakfast in bed for a week when we return home?" Castle bargains and Kate arches an eyebrow.

"You're on."

"I pick the winner," Lily announces. Castle nods in agreement, sinks to his knees in the water.

"May I escort you to the shore, little mermaid?" he offers, eliciting an eager grin to their daughter's lips.

Lily wades over to him, curls her arms around his neck and giggles with delight as he glides forward with her on his back, the water buoying the girl so there's too much pressure on his scars.

Kate sighs before she swims after them, unable to quell the unsettling blend of contentment and concern in her chest.

* * *

Lily is exhausted by the evening. Their daughter is barely able to finish her dinner, doesn't make it through the movie they sit down to watch afterwards, climbing into Kate's lap in the living room and curling against her mother's chest. Castle hefts her into his arms minutes later and carries her into the bedroom she chose upstairs, her beloved elephant already laying atop the pillows.

He's hesitant to let her sleep alone, but she turned down Kate's offer to let her sleep in the master bedroom with them tonight. She's been back in her own bed at the loft for over two weeks now, knowing she's welcome back in their bed at anytime, but their daughter has her mother's independence. She'll come to them if it's necessary, but he doesn't think Lily will be appearing in their room tonight.

His mother retires to bed not long after, sticking to a schedule she must have developed in rehab.

"Goodnight, darlings," she chimes, placing her cup of the half finished hot chocolate into the sink. She nods to Jim as she goes, her hand squeezes Kate's shoulder, but she pauses beside him. "Sweet dreams, kiddo."

His mother pecks a kiss to his forehead, brushes her hand to his arm, and he doesn't know why, but it leaves him a little breathless. He and his mother have never necessarily been affectionate. He was never mistreated growing up, always knew he was loved, but the simple touches are something new, mean more than he wants to admit.

"I guess I'll be heading to bed too," Jim announces once Martha has ascended the stairs. Although Rick knows Jim probably isn't going to sleep quite yet, the older man wishes them both a good night as well, detouring to snag a book from Castle's library before disappearing into the downstairs bedroom.

It leaves him and Kate alone in the kitchen, sipping at the last of the hot chocolate. Her eyes peer back at him, sparkling gold from over the rim of her mug.

"Beach or pool?" he asks, clearing his throat of the low husk it so easily falls into. Kate sets her cup down on the counter, comes towards him with embers alight in her gaze, a predatory smirk on her lips.

"Pool," she murmurs, coiling her fingers in the waistband of the swim trunks he kept on after their day on the beach. "It's chilly outside, the pool can be warmed, the beach will be freezing."

"Good point," he breathes, following the light tug of her fingers.

They sneak out of the house like teenagers into the night, taking the path around the property to the pool, and he relishes the thrill of it flooding his veins. He found a baby monitor in his closet that he still had from Alexis's first visits here and placed it in Lily's room, just in case; they'll hear if their daughter needs them, but for now, he slips through the back gate with his eyes on Kate.

He keeps the outside lights low, the ethereal glow of the pool bright enough, glimmering streaks of blue dancing across Kate's tan skin as she pulls the t-shirt over her head and kicks the shorts from her legs.

"You _did_ bring a bikini," he gasps, sweeping his eyes over the tasteful, white two piece. Gold accents decorate the top, the hips of the bottoms, and shimmer amidst the illumination of the pool, the shine of stars and the full moon overhead.

"Strip, Castle," she prompts, nodding to his t-shirt. He hastily rips the fabric over his head, shivers as the cool night air hits his skin and Kate's gaze unabashedly rakes over him.

The smile claims her lips, both seductive and pleased. "Better."

"Desperate to see my body uncovered, huh, Beckett?" he teases, smirking while he checks the pool's temperature, adjusting the settings of the hot tub, just in case she decides she wants to relax in the bubbling heat and lounge against the jets.

"You shouldn't be hiding it in the first place." Her footsteps are quiet on the stone flooring surrounding the pool, but he senses her approach and abandons the thermostat attached to the pool house to turn towards her.

"Doing everyone a favor," he chuckles, meeting her near the edge of the pool, in front of the stairs that descend into the water, but her lips fall into a frown. He sighs. "I don't want Lily to see."

Kate steps into him, pressing her body against his and splaying her hands at his back, over his scars.

"Castle, you're her dad and she's going to see them eventually," Kate points out, her voice soft like the trail of her fingertips along the maze of his recently reopened scar tissue. He echoes her ministrations, traces his fingers down the naked canvas of her back, tripping over the strings of her bikini and feeling her flesh ripple beneath his touch.

"I know," he mumbles, leaning in to drop his forehead to hers even as his skin sizzles from every point of contact, her bare flesh like fire beneath his fingertips. "But she's seen so much within the last month, too much. I just want some time, to let _her_ have some time, before she's exposed to another ugly piece of my disappearance and everything that came with it."

He watches her lips purse, but she dislodges her forehead from his to nuzzle her nose to his cheek, to slot the pieces of their bodies even further into place.

"I'm not going to push you to do anything you're not comfortable with," she assures him, skimming her lips at his cheekbone before lifting her head. "But there's something you need to know."

His brow knits with concern, but Kate shakes her head, withdraws one of her hands from his back to slip between them, rising to smooth her fingers at his brow.

"A few years ago, a few weeks before our wedding day... do you remember when I had to go undercover to infiltrate a drug ring and it turned out Vulcan Simmons was behind it?"

Castle straightens at the memory, one that feels like another lifetime ago with his memories back in place, but he nods. He'll never forget the overwhelming sensation of relief that washed over him when he rode out with Ryan and Esposito to find her on the side of the road, drenched, bloodied, and shivering. He'll never forget how it felt to wrap her up in his arms, hold her for the first time when he feared he wasn't going to have the chance again.

"Of course," he murmurs, grateful for the heat of her against him now, the reassurance that she lived, that she will always live.

"There was a point, while I was being held, that I knew I might not make it out, might not see you again, so I wrote you a letter," she reveals, but his brow only falls deeper into confusion. She never gave him a letter after that case. He knows he would remember that, would have memorized every word of her handwriting. "CSU found it afterwards, like I wanted them to, and they gave it back to me. But I had made it, we were okay, and I'd never wanted you to have to read that letter in the first place so I threw it away."

He has no idea where she's going with this, what the point of this rather dark trip down memory lane is, so he waits for her to continue, listens.

"I still remember every word of it and I swore I'd tell you everything I put into that letter in person, but I never did. Never took the time, never had the chance," she whispers, rolling her eyes at herself, offering him a glimpse of the moisture gathering along the edges. "So I want to tell you now, because you need to know that our partnership, our relationship, is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me."

"Kate," he murmurs, shaking his head. She cups his cheek in her palm, snakes the other from his back to rest atop his chest, over his heart, the thing she's turning to putty beneath her hand.

"I wrote that you were an amazing man and how I loved you with all of my heart, but Castle… _I_ had no idea." Her lips quiver, but split into a smile so tender, it squeezes his heart like an iron fist. "I had no idea how amazing you truly were, how strong - god, Castle, you're the strongest person I know. You survived six years of captivity and came out of it still able to trust and love and conquer. They never broke you."

He closes his eyes, because if he doesn't, he's going to cry, stain her skin and that perfect little bikini with his tears.

"You're an amazing man, an amazing father and son, and there's not a single thing about you that is ugly. Superficial or not," she declares so sternly even as her voice shakes, that he can't even muster the will to argue, doesn't think he wants to. "You're beautiful, Rick. You've always been beautiful to me in every way and nothing could change that."

Castle's eyes flutter open as her thumb brushes over his lips, caressing at his chin, and for once, he's left without the words that have always been on the tip of his tongue. His fingers itch with the urge to try anyway, the need for a pen and paper, a keyboard beneath his hands. He misses writing about her, misses the ability to weave a world that revolves around her even in fiction.

He's desperate to tell her that he and everyone else pales in comparison to the beauty that is her, that she's the one who's always made him strong in even his weakest moments, that she's everything, has always been everything to him. But all he can manage is a single exhale of a sentence.

"I love you," he rasps, so inadequate to the brilliant speech she's just given.

Apparently, it's enough for Kate, and she rises on her toes, sears a kiss to his mouth that evaporates the risk of tears. He sweeps his hands down her body, tangles one hand in her hair and the other in the ties of the bikini at her back.

"Get in the pool with me, Castle," she husks, the arousal that simmered and calmed in his blood rising into a wildfire through his veins once more.

Rick lifts her up, carries her into the edge of the pool, feeling her thighs clench at his waist before he forgoes the steps, the shallow end, to jump into the deep with her instead.

Kate squeals into his mouth before they're both submerged beneath the heated waters of the pool, sinking to the bottom. But she doesn't let go, her arms loose around his neck as he pushes off the flooring with his feet, breaches the surface with her body slippery and cool and still wrapped around his.

Kate grins, laughing into his kiss while his fingers tease at the strings of her bikini, humming once he's successfully rid her of the pretty white fabric and tossed it away to float across the water.

"So desperate to have me in a bikini just to do that," she huffs, her fingers furrowing through his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp.

"I appreciated the view," Castle murmurs, trailing his lips to her jaw, suckling at the slick line of her throat. "I just like this one a little better."

She rocks in closer to him at that, her hands cradling his face, drawing him up from her neck. He's struck by the sight of her haloed by the moonlight that gleams over her shoulder, bathes her in its soft glow.

"You're just so beautiful," he adds, his heart catching. Kate presses her forehead to his, her lashes grazing his cheek as she parts her lips over his mouth, kissing him under the stars.

She tastes like hot chocolate and salt, like night air and musk and promises of forever, and Castle drapes one of his hands at the side of her throat. He seals his palm to the thin skin covering her pulse to remind himself that it's all real.


	26. Chapter 26

**Epilogue**

* * *

A melodramatic gasp from the hallway startles Kate awake, forcing her to remember where she is, what day it is. Kate shifts away from the glow of sunlight spilling through the master bedroom's windows, buries her face in Castle's shoulder.

"Alexis," she hears Lily call from the open bedroom door. Castle grunts into his pillow at the sudden assault of noise, unwillingly begins to wake.

He's lying on his stomach, half of his face mashed into the pillow, his arms up and hugging the cushiony goose down. He turns his head from the opposite direction, towards her, and peels his eyes open. They shine cerulean in the morning sunlight, half-lidded and hazy with sleep, but bright as they land on her.

"Alexis, they broke the rules!"

"Oh no," he mumbles and she smirks against the muscle of his bicep, hides her drowsy amusement in the crook of his elbow. "You didn't sneak back to your room last night, Beckett."

She huffs and presses one of her knees to his thigh beneath the sheets. "I fell asleep," she defends on a rasp, sighing out against his arm. "It's your fault too, you should have woken me up."

He scoffs, but cranes his neck to brush a kiss to her mouth, grinning as Lily groans in protest from the door.

"Just be glad I reminded us to get dressed afterwards," he murmurs before Lily can approach, climb onto the bed. Kate chuckles as the mattress shakes with their daughter's upwards journey.

"You guys," she huffs, exasperated and crawling over Castle's back, around to his side of the bed. "You had one rule and you broke it and now you're ruining tradition!"

"I never agreed to the tradition," Castle mutters into his pillow. "You and your sister imposed it on me."

"Yes, but you didn't argue, therefore, you agreed to the terms," Alexis states from the doorway, still in her fluffy blue robe with her hair in a messy bun that makes her look so much younger. Such a juxtaposition to the sight of her with her arms crossed and one of her eyebrows raised, staring back at them like a reproving parent. "Seriously, you two, it was one night."

"I don't sleep well alone," Castle whines. Alexis rolls her eyes, even though they all know it isn't exactly a lie.

But it hadn't been Castle who sneaked out of his bedroom in the middle of the night. Kate tried to fall asleep in the downstairs guest bedroom, the mantra of those same words, _it's just one night,_ playing on a loop in her head. But that failed to stop her self-sabotaging mind from drifting back in time, to the hours before their last attempted wedding day.

It's different this time - they drove up to the Hamptons together a couple of days ago, the people who ruined their last wedding day are no longer a threat, have been dead for two years now, and Castle isn't going anywhere this time.

None of that logic stopped her from slipping out of the guest bed at one a.m. and climbing the stairs on tiptoes. She checked on Lily, making sure she was sleeping soundly, before easing into Castle's room, sliding into his bed, and waking him up with her own form of reassurance.

"I'm going to tell Aunt Lanie," Lily says, leaning over Castle's back with her hands braced on his shoulder, her hair falling in a curtain around her face as she hovers above him. "Daddy, you need to get up before people start to get here."

"What time is it?" Kate inquires, rolling onto her back and scrubbing a hand over her face, expelling a final yawn.

"Almost eight," Alexis replies, nodding to Lily in indication of why they are all up so early, and smothering her smile when Castle groans in displeasure.

"The wedding is in the afternoon and we only invited family. Let me sleep in, children," he grumbles.

Lily untangles one of his arms from around his pillow and tugs.

"Daddy, it's your wedding day, the best day of the year," she sing-songs the reminder, because Lily has anticipated this day more than anyone. "And we made you and Momma a special breakfast to celebrate. So get up and you can eat and then start getting ready, because you take forever."

"She has a point," Kate murmurs. Lily pulls him into a sitting position with a crow of triumph as Castle gasps.

"I'm reconsidering this marriage."

Kate grins and pushes up on her elbows to press a kiss to his cheek. "Too late."

"Come on, Momma, you too," Lily chirps, apparently satisfied that Castle has no intention of going back to sleep. She hops over the edge of the mattress. "Alexis showed me how to make coffee the way you like."

"That sounds perfect, Peanut. I'll be right there," Kate promises, shooting Alexis a grateful look and easing the comforter from her lap as Lily skips out of the room, her older sister turning to follow.

"Just in case you couldn't see through my ruse," Castle adds, mimicking her and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "I can't wait to marry you today."

Kate circles the bed to him with her chest feeling light, her body giddy and alive with butterflies. They flitter along her sternum, her heart, and force her to suppress the ridiculous urge to giggle as she comes to stand in front of him.

"It's mutual," she murmurs, cupping his face in her hands, her engagement ring, the new one he presented her with last year, catching in the sunlight. "Always has been."

Castle's hands on her waist draw her to stand between his knees and she seals a kiss to his mouth, gentle and chaste and eliciting a smile beneath hers. He sighs, a sound so content and lovely, and winds his arms around her, pulling her into a hug that presses their chests flush and steals her breath.

"Lily's right," he murmurs into her shoulder. "This is going to be the best day."

* * *

Rick's heart is a bird fluttering in his chest, wings feathering against the cage of his ribs, beak pecking along his sternum.

He stands on the tasteful white platform beneath an archway, beautiful blends of flowers threaded through the lattice, all of which he knows his mother and daughter worked hard to put together. Along with a handful of tables draped in simple white cloth, the accompanying chairs, it's one of the few forms of decoration in the backyard of his Hamptons home.

Kate kept saying she didn't want anything extravagant and honestly, neither does he. Their last wedding was fun - albeit a bit stressful - to plan, but if its demise has taught him anything, it's that floral arrangements and placement settings aren't what matters. He doesn't care about the venue or the number of guests on the invite list; he has everyone he needs here.

He has his mother, sober for over eighteen months now, standing beside him in a gown that is simple in design, but vibrant in its array of colorful fabric billowing in the breeze. She looks radiant, healthy, her eyes bright like sapphires and her smile back in place. He has Alexis, his grown up little girl in a dress that is pink, pretty, but sophisticated, suitable for a woman of nearly thirty. The fiery waves of her hair are longer now, caressing her shoulders, her cheeks rosy and red from smiling, causing her to look so much younger despite her maturity.

He has his friends, Esposito and Ryan in their tuxes, Jenny and their two children, Sarah Grace and Nicholas, rounding out the guest list. They all sit in the short row of seats with Alexis's longtime boyfriend, Michael, whom he's finally deemed as acceptable, and the single empty chair placed at the edge of the aisle of grass for Johanna Beckett.

And most importantly, he has the promise of an eight year old flower girl in a sparkling white dress and curls in her hair following Lanie down the aisle, spreading petals across the path of lawn and smiling shyly when she catches her father's eye. He has the promise of Kate Beckett appearing at the other end of the aisle, holding to her father's arm and wearing that same bashful smile as Lily. The entire scene robs him of breath, causing the flutters in his chest to cease, making everything come to a standstill in the most wonderful way.

It's surreal. After eight years, to finally be living this moment, to have made it to the altar when their happily ever after felt cursed for so long. A piece of him feared that she may never want to risk marrying him because of it, and he wouldn't blame her, but on the night he presented her with the engagement ring, Kate didn't hesitate.

He held onto the band of white gold for a long while, the subtle diamonds, similar to the last one he'd given her. But this one is different, a word of promise engraved inside. _Always_. Because it's definitely proven to come through for them without fail.

He agonized over the right time, the right place, the right words, for months, but it was on an unplanned night in November, days before her birthday, that he lost the ability to wait any longer. Lying beside her in bed, her body draped in sheets and moonlight, he retrieved the tiny velvet box from deep within the confines of his nightstand.

"I was wondering when you were going to ask," she whispered, a grin on her lips while his parted in surprise. Her eyes were soft and starlit as she stared down at the ring between them and he almost wanted to apologize for making her wait. But then she leaned in to kiss him, her smile causing any ideas of an apology to fall apart within seconds. "It's always been yes, Castle."

Now she's walking towards him in a gorgeous white pant suit and the ridiculously high heels that match, looking at him like she's seeing him for the first time, like the sight of him standing there is all that matters. And today, it is, because he's here. He made it to the altar, to her. No longer is it a far off dream that kept him warm on a cold cell after hours of torture, it's real, and the gratitude he feels for that reflects bright and wondrous in her eyes.

It spreads through her features, lights up her face, and she's just - she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Lanie shoots Castle a wink as she steps to the side to take her seat beside Esposito. Lily mounts the platform of the gazebo alone, standing in front of Alexis with her empty basket, flower petals decorating the lawn in her wake.

And then Jim is guiding Kate through the last few steps it takes to reach their little family on the white dais.

She hugs her father, accepts the kiss he presses to her cheek, before he takes his place on the opposite side of the platform. And then Kate Beckett is finally standing in front of him, ready to marry him.

"Hi," she breathes, and he can already feel the smile stretching his lips, aching in his cheeks.

"Hi, you look breathtaking," he murmurs, watching the blush color her skin.

"Whenever you're ready," the officiant says. Castle almost forgot the poor man was there.

Kate leans past him to hand Alexis her bouquet, to withdraw the ring from the slim pocket at her waist.

When the band encircles his finger, he's encompassed in an overwhelming sense of right, of _finally_ , and he almost draws her in for a kiss before she can get her vows out. He suppresses the urge, lets her speak, and then she's moving him to tears with her carefully written words, leaving him nearly forgetting his own.

But as usual, the words always flood him when he's talking about Kate and his vows to her are no different.

"I love you, Katherine Beckett," he says, pushing the wedding band on her finger to join the engagement ring. He's proud of his voice for remaining steady even as his heart soars and he's left breathless staring back at her. "I've always loved you, I always will, and the mystery of you is the one I want to spend the rest of my life exploring. I promise to be your friend and your partner in crime, life, and parenting." He watches her gaze fall to Lily at his side, her tremulous smile only managing to grow and the hand still encased in his squeezing lightly. "I would say until death do us part, but I don't think even that could keep me away from you."

"For the time of our lives then," she whispers, caressing the back of his hand with the sweep of her thumb, and all he can do is nod, can't produce another word past the lump in his throat.

"By the power vested in me by the state of New York," the officiant announces. "I now pronounce you husband and wife."

Kate's soft breath of laughter - the pure sound of joy on her lips as she cradles his face in her hands and surges into the draw of his palms at her waist, is melodious to his ears. It's made even better by Lily's cheering, the applause once he's finally able to kiss his wife.

The boys whistle from their seats and Kate grins into their kiss, rests her forehead against his even as they break apart. His mother joins in on Lily's clapping and their small audience rises to their feet while Kate nudges her nose to his cheek.

"Worth the wait?" she murmurs and he chuckles, dusts one more kiss to her mouth before he pulls back to see her. He doesn't think she's ever looked so happy.

Castle strokes a stray curl falling from the simple updo behind her ear, lingers to graze his knuckles along her jaw.

"Always."

* * *

Once some of the excitement has died down, they have a moment to themselves on the dais, Kate's arm curled through his, her chin on his shoulder and her body pressed warm and flush against his side.

Lily is running through the grass with Nicholas and Sarah Grace, their shouts and giggles filling the air, Alexis is sharing a glass of champagne with Michael. Jim and Martha chat at one of the tables, while their immediate family of friends have created a small cluster near the buffet table set up near the house.

"Rick," she murmurs, her voice a hum in his ear, and Castle tilts his head towards her, their cheeks meeting in a chaste kiss.

"Yes, Mrs. Castle?"

Kate hums and dances her fingers along the inside of his elbow. "I've noticed something over the last couple of weeks, wanted to be sure before I mentioned anything."

"Yeah?" he inquires, his interest piqued even as he watches Lily's dress glitter in the dying sunlight.

"Castle, I'm late."

He turns his head, finds her watching him with her chin still on his shoulder and her bottom lip between her teeth.

"Late? You're - _oh_ , that means… again?" he whispers.

She huffs, buries her face in his shoulder.

"I didn't plan it this way, I swear," she sighs.

But Castle is shifting to face her, his heart pitter-pattering at the implication.

"To be clear, you're-"

"Pregnant," she confirms. "At least, I'm pretty sure."

The wings of his heart beat hard, a bird set free in his chest, and he catches her hand. Her fingers curl through his, squeeze and remind him to breathe.

She bites her lip, sucks in a shallow breath of her own. "Is… are you okay with this? Is it something you'd want or-"

"What? Yes, of course. More than okay, definitely want," he rushes out, dropping her hand to cup her face in both of his. He seals a kiss to her mouth, feels the gentle hum of laughter against his lips.

She sighs when he lets her go, any doubts she may have harbored prior to telling him vanished.

"It'll be a lot, but I think we could handle another baby. Lily will definitely be excited to be a big sister."

Oh, his breath catches at that. Lily's going to be a big sister and they're going to have another child and… and he'll actually have the chance to be around for all of it this time. The pregnancy, the birth, toddlerhood. It doesn't suture the hollow spot that will always exist from missing so much of Lily's early life, all of her firsts, but it fills him with affirmation, determination to be there for his younger daughter tenfold, to show this baby, his wife, the same devotion.

Castle steps in to brush his knuckles along her stomach, the non-existent bump, and does his best to blink away the mist in his eyes, clear his throat.

"This makes my gift for you seem completely insignificant," he murmurs, easing his hand away from her abdomen to settle at the bone of her hip, but Kate merely tilts her head at him in question.

"What gift?"

"Well, I was going to present you with the physical copy tonight," he sighs, watching her eyes flicker with knowledge before he can even finish his reveal. "I'm finally done with the book, wanted you to be the first to read it."

"Castle," she grins, swaying in to brush an eager kiss to his lips, resting her hands against his chest. "I didn't even realize you were already done writing it. I'm so proud of you."

"Don't say that until you've read it," he warns, but Kate shakes her head. She hooks her fingers at his lapels, fisting her them in the fabric and dragging him closer, eradicating his doubts with the distance.

"I'd be proud of you no matter what, but a book by you could never disappoint," she assures him and he's certain that his cheeks are going to be sore by the end of the night, aching from beaming back at her like a lovestruck idiot for the past few hours.

"For a beautiful sentiment as that, may I have this dance?" he inquires, holding out his hand in invitation even as she smiles back at him quizzically.

"There's no… music," she says, as if he's not aware.

He pulls out his phone with the hand not extended to her, taps the screen for the song already loaded onto the device, and slips it back into his suit pocket as it begins to play.

"Our song," she breathes, staring at the source of the sound for a heartbeat before returning her gaze to him. The smile blossoms across her lips and she steps into the cove of his body, curling her fingers around his palm. Her cheek falls to rest against his, her lashes brushing kisses to his jaw, and Castle laces an arm around her waist to draw her closer. "You remembered."

His lips quirk and he brushes his thumb over the wedding band on her finger, savors this perfect moment with his wife.

"I could never forget."

* * *

 **A/N: I owe so many thanks to so many people where this story is concerned. To Nadia for using her talent to create such beautiful cover art, to Alex and Evan for coming on yet another journey with me and offering endless amounts of support and excitement throughout the writing process of this story, and to Laura, who graciously read over each chapter at the last minute and taught me _so_ much along the way. **

**And, of course, to all of you who took the time to read and leave me feedback in the form of reviews, messages, and tweets - my gratitude is infinite. Thank you for granting me the privilege to share my work and for showing me and my stories so much kindness. It means more than you know.**


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